
FOUR MONTHS IN ALGERIA. 



E. CLAY, PRINTER, LOJIDON. 



\ 



FOUR MONTHS IN ALGERIA 

« 

WITH 

A VISIT TO CAETHAGE, 



BY THE 

KEY. JOSEPH WILLIAMS BLAKESLEY, 

VICAK OF "WARE, HERTS ; 
AND SOMETIME FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDQE. 



WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS AETEU PHOTOGRAPHS. 




MACMILLAN AND CO. 

AND 23, HENRIETTA STREET, COYENT GARDEN, LONDON. 
1859. 



[The right of Translation is reserved.] 



3 



NOTICE. 



The volume here offered to the Public contains some 
account of a very curious country, which notwithstanding 
its ready accessibility is little known in England. The 
Author was compelled, at a short notice, to seek refuge 
from the inclemency of an English winter and spring ; and 
while profiting by the genial climate of North Africa, 
endeavoured to turn his banishment from England to such 
account as was possible for a convalescent. Much remains 
unnoticed to reward the curiosity of an ordinary traveller 
at the cost of very little hardship or danger. 



C N T E N T S. 



CHAPTEE I. 

Voyage from Marseilles— Optical Plieuomenon — Algiers from 
the Sea — Mixed Population — Hotels of Algiers — Extensive 
View — Accommodation for Invalids — Climate of Algiers — 
Mildness of Winter — South Winds the coldest — Advantages 
of Oran . .... 



CHAPTEE II. 

Town of Algiers — Traces of Eoman Town — Limit of its Size — 
Ancient Eemains excavated — The Fauxbourg Bab-Azoun — 
Moorish Streets — Interior of Houses — Splendour of Interiors 
— Specimens still existing — The Kazbah of Algiers ruined 
in the Invasion — Interior of Mosques — Court of the Kadi — • 
The Marabouts of Barbary — Their numerous Tombs — Growth 
of Legends — Endowment of Chapelries — Impoverished Popu- 
lation — Mosque of Sidi Abd-er-Eahman — Garden of Marengo 
— Monuments to Napoleon — Distaste of the natives for 
French Civihsation — Theatre and Club 



CHAPTER HI. 

Neighbourhood of Algiers — Pointe Pescade — Cape of the Euins 
— Passage round the Cape — Spanish Settlers — Savage Dogs — 
Energy of the Clergy — Liberality of first Bishop — Sisters of 
Charity — Fever in Summer — Orphan Schools of Agriculture 



viii 



CONTENTS. 



— Protestants and Jews — Moorish Shops — Moorish and Arab 
Head-dresses — Oppression of Jews — Ritual of Jews — Varied 
Type of Face — Singular Custom perhaps of Pagan Origin — 
The Aissaoua — Descendants of the Psylli— Are professed 
Exorcists, but really Jugglers — Serpent Eaters — Are still 
believed in 37 



CHAPTER IV. 

Ascent of the Sahel — Ruined Moorish Villas — Bouzarieh — 
Peninsula of Sidi Ferudje — The French Invasion, how 
effected — Arab Cavalry — Battle of Staoueli — Battle of Sidi 
Kalif — Plateau of Fontaine Chapelle — Disordered Advance of 
the French — Arab Communism — Valley of the Consuls — El 
Biar — Attack of the Fort of the Emperor — Surrender of 
Algiers 62 



CHAPTER V. 

Moorish Cemeteries destroyed — Road-making of the French 
across the Sahel— Birkadem — Roads across the Metidja — 
Want of Stone — Botanical Garden — Cultivation of Sugar — 
Line of Military Camps- — Clerical Establishments — Failure of 
Agricultural Colony — Disgraceful Conduct of Land Jobbers- 
Ford of the Harash — Scarcity of Fuel— Rovigo and L'Arba — 
Orange Groves— Cultivation of the Metidja — Agricultural 
Returns — Fever prevalent at L'Arba— Causes of Unhealthy 
Villages — A Fatal Invention — Landlords and Tenants — Capi- 
talists of Algiers — A Model Tenant — Fonduck — A perfectly 
happy Man — Predominance of Spaniards — Schools at Fon- 
(luck — ^Extensive Cultivation — Wild Boars — An Arab Prison 
— Irrigated Gardens 79 



CHAPTER VI. 

Bouffarik — General Lamoriciere — Camp d'Erlon — Blidah — Cul- 
tivation of Tobacco— Gorge of the ChifFa — Dangerous Road — 
Mudlike Soil — Passage of the Biban — Arab Outbreak — Medeah 
— Mines of Mouzaia — Visit to the Teniat — Battle of the 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



Teniat — View from the Teniat — Tomb of the Queen a 
Mauritanian Monument — Visit to Great Kabylie — Cross the 
Metidja — Wild Beasts — Market on the Isser — Marshy Plains 
— Caravanserais — Hospitable Frenchmen — Valley of the 
Sebaou — Fort of Tizi-Ouzou — Kabyle Farming — Subjugation 
of Kabylie — Market of Tizi-Ouzou — A Frank Marabout — ■ 
Military Tenure of Land— Quarrels of the Kabyles — Their 
Original Stock — Their Government— Their Personal Character 
— French Troops in Bivouack — Their Order and Helpfulness 
— Admirable DiscipUne of a Part of the Army — Military 
Punishment — Note on Kabyle Language . . , Ill 

CHAPTER VIL 

The Western Province—Coasting Voyage — View of Coast — 
Harbourless Sea — View of Cherchell~Its Capture by the 
French-— Tenez — Coast of the Dahra — Arrival at Oran — Its 
Acquisition by France — Uncertain Policy of the Government 
— Evil of Concessions — Population of Oran — Geological Cha- 
racter of the Neighbourhood of Oran — Resemblance to the 
Sahel — Life on the Borders — Hospitality of French Officers — 
Journey to Tlemcen— Savageness of an Arab Tribe — Horrible 
Route — -African Charioteering — Occupation ' 6f Tlemgen — 
Frontier Warfare— Rough-handed Justice— The Mechouar of 
Tlemgen — ^Rise of A.bd-el-Kader — Abd-el-Kader at Tlem9en — 
The French break witli him— Defeat at the Makta — Expedi- 
tion to Maskara — Disastrous Retreat — Cavaignac in the 
Mechouar — His heroic Bravery and Magnanimity — Destruc- 
tion of Tlem9en — Remains of Native Town — Magnitude of 
Ancient City — The Mansourah — Walls of Artificial Concrete 
— Traces of former Greatness — Arab Hockey-— Tomb of Sidi- 
Bou-Medine — Arab School — Government Breeding Stable — 
Diet of Barbary Horses — Their special Merits — Ain-Temou- 
chent — Lions and Panthers — Copper Mines of Sebdou . . . 152 

CHAPTER VIIL 

Journey to Maskara — Failure of Communistic Experiment — 
Approach to Maskara — Trade of Maskara — Growth of the 
Vine — Delays in Administration — Route to Mostaganem — 
High Plateaux of Limestone— Descent on El B013— Reception 



X 



CONTENTS. 



by the AgTia — Castle of a Native Chief — An Arab Warden of 
the Marches — Arab Sumptuousness — Frost in the Mountains 
— Effect of the Eains — A Fever-stricken Caravanserai — Endu- 
rance of African Soldiers — Mostaganem — 111 Success of French 
Settlers — State of Morals — Visit to Mazagran — French Feat 
of Arms — An Ill-fated Monument— Souk-el-Mitou — Enormous 
Olive-Trees — Yalley of the Cheliff — Traces of the Emperor 
Hadrian — Carelessness of French Antiquaries — Visit to St. 
Leu — Remains of Arsenaria — Difficulty of Searching — Moun- 
tain of Lions — Harsh Treatment of Natives — Sebkah of 
Arzew — Return to Algiers — Note on the Kouskous .... 203 



CHAPTER IX. 

Visit to Eastern Province — The Atlas Ranges — The Middle 
Atlas — Elevated Plateau — Region of Marshes — Drainage by 
the Cheliff — Difficulty of Communication — Dellys— Bougie — 
Roman Towns on the Coast — Djidjelli — Collo — -Anchorage of 
Stora — Remains of Rusicada — Ancient Records of Vulgarity 
— Neighbourhood of Philippeville— Civil and Military Terri- 
tory — Panic of a Kabyle Girl — Deserted Villages — Site of 
Philippeville — Earthworks made by Soldiers — A Port wanted — 
Jemappes — Numbers of Wild Boars and Lions — A Disappoint- 
ment — A Sociable Lion — Kabyle Gallantry — Arab Victim of 
French Swindling —An unpromising Domestic 239 



CHAPTER X. 

Journey to Constantine — Village of St. Antoine — Parisian Colo- 
nists — Grafting of Wild Olives — El Hamma — Approach to 
Constantine — Noble Site of the City — Horrors of the Storming 
— Vast Remains of Antiquity — The City by Night — The Beni- 
Mozabites — Mahometan Quakers — Commercial Spirit — An 
Arab Wedding — Tomb of Praecilius — Portentous Latinity of 
a prosperous Cirta Banker — Kabyle Market — Red Salt — Blind 
Beggars — Extreme Fertility — Falls of the Rummel— Gorge of 
the Rummel— Bridge destroyed — Siphon of the Aqueduct — • 
Jews of Constantine — Mahometan Teachers — Mihtary and 
Civilians — French Subalterns — French Schools without Boys' 
Games 269 



CONTENTS. 



xi 



CHAPTER XI. 

PAGE 

Journey to Batna — Oiiled-Eamoum— Salt Lakes — The Grazing 
Season — Arrival at Batna— A Bad Lodging — Penitentiary of 
Lambessa — Treatment of Inmates — Political Prisoners — Im- 
possibility of Escape — Remains of the Roman Camp and 
Town — Triple Gateway — Ancient Subalterns' Club — Officers' 
Ring-money— The Status of the Soldier — Dread of Evil 
Omens — Timber-trade of Batna — Mountaineers of the Aures 
as yet unsubdued — Ancient Numidian Monument — The Ma- 
drasen a Fire Temple — Search for Treasure— Cold Nights on 
the Plateau — Journey to Milah, a Roman Station — Recep- 
tion by the Kaid — Arab Hospitality — Vanity in Age — Effects 
of Fasting — Observance of the Ramadan a chief point of 
Religion 300 



CHAPTER XII. 

Journey to Guelma — Breeding Grounds of the Tribes — Savage 
Dogs — ^Mules and Camels — Geological Phenomenon — Fall from 
a Mule — Limestone Cliffs — Women's Tents — Mixture of Lan- 
guages — A Bivouack in Prospect — A Friend in Need — Strange 
Quarters — Hammam Meskoutin — Incorrect Information — 
Mineral Springs of Extraordinary Efficacy — Ancient Routes 
— Roman Baths still used — Extremely Fertile Valley — Guelma 
the Ancient Calama — Beauty of the Site^ — Arab Coffee- 
crushing — Market of Guelma — Depreciation of Horses — Re- 
mains of Calama — Effects of an Earthquake — Pagan Riots at 
Calama — Appeal to St. Augustine — Healthy Neighbourhood 
of Guelma — Journey to Bona — Wild Boars and Lions — Descent 
upon Bona — Site of Ancient Hippo — Military Prison at Bona — ■ 
Excellent Discipline — Ancient Cisterns at Hippo — Mouth of 
River closed — Tomb of St. Augustine — Search for the Aque- 
duct — Iron Mines — Want of a Port 332 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Voyage to Tunis — Pilgrims to Mecca — Ruffianism of French 
Sailors — Hotels at Tunis — Jewish Tax-farmers — Interior of 
Tunis — Its Reputation for Healthiness — Trade with the Inte- 
rior — Expedition to Carthage — Hill of St. Louis — The Small 



xii 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



Cisterns — Tiie Byrsa and Magaria — The Cothon — Probable 
Alteration of Level in the Neighbourhood — Topography given 
by Polybius'and Appian — Defence of Carthage like that of 
Sebastopol — Success of the Besieged — The Magaria — The Great 
Cisterns — The Aqueduct — French Collections — English Exca- 
vations — Appian a Guide for the Topographer — Operations of 
Scipio — His Winter Campaign — Attack on the Cothon and 
the Byrsa — Limits of the Byrsa in the First and Last Days 
— Djebel Gomart — Djebel Khawee — General View of Carthage 
— Remains of Amphitheatre — Procopius's Account of the 
Vandal War — The Lake in his Time not used as a Harbour — 
Destruction of the Aqueduct 373 



Cost of Algeria— Permanent Works — Products of Algeria — 
European Immigration — Spaniards and Maltese — Arab Emi- 
grants from Spain the Originators of Piracy — The Turkish 
Dynasty a Military Oligarchy— The Moors and Koulouglis a 
Subject Class— Administration by the Deys and their Satraps 
— Government of the Tribes dependent on Algiers — Internal 
Administration of the Town — Injudicious Policy after the 
Conquest — French Administration at the Present Time — The 
New Constitution of Algeria — Eeturn to a System already 
found to fail — Note on European Population of Algeria . .415 



CHAPTER XIV. 



DIRECTIONS TO BINDER. 



Map of Algeria. 

Arabs of the Province or Oran . , . . 
Part or the Majnsourah at Tlempen . . . 
EoMAN Remains of Lambessa 



Frontispiece. 
. To face p. 193 



312 
320 
373 
376 
407 



Ancient Numidian Monument near Batna 
Site of Ancient Carthage 



Carthage taken from the Deck of Steamer 



Carthage taken from the Hill of the Catacombs 
Sections of Uoutes ............ 



ai Eud, 



1 



FOUR MONTHS IN ALGERIA. 



CHAPTER I. 

The communication between the two continents of 
Europe and Africa is at the present time as easy 
and as res^ular as that between Endand and Belsjium 
was twenty years ago. Twice a week, on Tuesdays 
and Satiu-days, excellent steamers belonging to the 
Messageries Imperiales leave Marseilles for iVlgiers. 
Besides these, a steamer belonging to a private Erench 
company leaves each port every Thursday. These 
latter vessels are not quite so speedy as the packet- 
boats, as they are built to carry merchandise, and 
consequently they enjoy less popularity with the 
travelling public. In one of them, however, I em- 
barked on the 31st of December, IS 57. The sky 
was clear, and the sea like a mill-pond ; a balmy 
breeze, such as one is favoured with on a fine early 
September day in England, blew gently from the 

B 



2 VOYAGE mOM MARSEILLES. 

south-west, and the barometers predicted the con- 
tinuance of calm weather. Under suchi circumstances, 
no one wha has ever experienced sea-sickness will 
hesitate to choose a hdtiment de commerce just about 
to put to sea in preference to the prospect of a mail 
steamer forty-eight hours later. At one o'clock the 
Kahyle passed the Marseilles lighthouse, carrying 
twelve or fourteen deck and second cabin passengers, 
but only myself in the chief cabin. I was well con- 
tent to accept the dulness of my solitary state in 
consideration of the comfort incident to being the 
sole candidate for a berth, although the fineness of 
the w^eather rendered the advantages of the position 
less conspicuous than might have been the case. 
The accommodation was in every respect quite as 
good as that on board the mail-boats, and the 
captain, an intelligent, courteous, and apparently 
skilful seaman, made our tete-a-tete dinners and break- 
fasts as pleasant as could be desired, and furnished 
me with several pieces of information Mdiicb I found 
very useful when I first landed in Africa. 

While watching the receding shore of Europe with 
that interest which exile, although only for a few 
months, invariably inspires, I was surprised by a phe- 
nomenon which at the instant appeared very strange, 
although a few minutes' reflection dispelled all asto- 
nishment. As the hills surrounding Marseilles dis- 
appeared, they were succeeded by what seemed to 



OPTICAL PHENOMENON. 3 

be liigli cliffs coming down to the water's edge. We 
were at the time some five and thirty miles from the 
land, and the appearance was not unlike that of the 
English cliffs when one is six or seven miles out 
at sea. I thought at first there must be some optical 
delusion, but on taking the bearings carefully, and 
referring to the map, the mystery was explained. 
The cliffs " were the high Alpine summits, covered 
with their eternal snows, distant from the deck of the 
steamer more than one hundred miles. Erom my 
point of view, the whole space really intervening 
between the sea horizon and these summits had 
vanished away, and they themselves appeared thrown 
forward, as it seemed, quite near. They continued, 
especially two of them, growing higher and higher, 
slightly illuminated, half an hour after the upper edge 
of the sun had sunk in the sea, and it was not till 
five o'clock that they altogether disappeared. Had 
the steamer left Marseilles an hour earlier, they would 
no doubt have been visible at even a greater distance. 
At nine o'clock on new year's morning we sighted 
Minorca, and during the day were passing through 
the channel which separates that island from Majorca. 
While about two leagues off the former, we were met 
by the packet from Algiers, the first vessel we had 
seen since quitting the shores of France, as the 
ordinary course of ships proceeding up or down the 
Mediterranean lies to the south of the Balearic islands. 

B 2 



4 ALGIERS FROM THE SEA. 

At sunset we lost sight of Majorca, being then about 
one hundred and fifty rniles from Algiers, in the 
harbour of which we dropped our anchor at nine 
o'clock, on the 2d of January, after a prosperous 
voyage of forty-four hours. 

The town of Algiers, on approaching it from the 
north, looks at a distance as if it stood on a kind of 
platform let down from a high range of hills behind. 
This apparent peninsula is the Sahel, a mountainous 
boss, which immediately backs the town, and the 
high range behind is the Northern or Lesser Atlas, 
as it is commonly although not very properly called. 
Between the Sahel and the Atlas is an extensive 
plain, the Metidja, the concealment of which from 
the eye of a spectator approaching the land causes 
the optical deception just noticed. I had heard a 
great deal of the beauty of the coup d' ceil, and was a 
little disappointed at not recognising at once the 
truth of the Arab comparison of Algiers to a diamond 
set in a frame of emerald. But that idea, as I after- 
wards found, was suggested by the distant view of 
the town from the east, when the dazzling white of 
the houses, all massed together, contrasts strikingly 
with the luxuriant vegetation of early spring. Neither 
the direction in which I had approached, nor the 
season of the year, allowed the production of this 
effect. The houses in the immediate neighbourhood 
of the sea are all built by the French in the style 



MIXED POPULATION. 5 

of architecture to which they are accustomed, with 
large windows opening on the street, and green 
Minds outside, as different as possible from the white- 
washed wall, pierced with one or two loopholes, 
which characterises the external appearance of the 
Moorish dwellings. The aspect of the hills around 
seemed very little different from the opposite shore of 
the Mediterranean ; but they were studded with white 
specks of villages and country houses as far as the 
eye could reach, and, not being aware that many of 
these were ruins, I concluded that I was about to 
enter a thickly peopled and prosperous country. A 
number of boats, each with a barefooted Moor in 
it, surrounded the steamer ; and as soon as the official 
of the Sanitary Board, whose visits are not dis- 
pensed with in any case, had pronounced a favourable 
verdict, I was conveyed in one to the neighbourhood 
of the Porte de la Marine, and landed on the quay 
amid a crowd which seemed, both to eye and ear, 
composed of every nation under heaven. Half- naked 
negroes from Biskra, and swarthy Arabs from the 
more immediate neighbourhood, contended with 
figures in European costume, but of no lighter com- 
plexion, for the honour of carrying my portmanteau, 
and urged their respective claims in Arabic, Spanish, 
Italian, Provencal, and Enghsh. A single Erench- 
man appeared, — the commissionaire of the hotel to 
which I was bound. Making myself over to the 



6 HOTELS OF ALGIERS. 

disposal of this functionary, and freighting two Maltese 
with my baggage, I mounted the ascent which, no 
long time back, had been trodden by thousands of 
Christian captives ; assured the Custom-house officer 
at the top that I was importing no eggs, poultry, 
bread, fruit, or other article subject to octroi; and 
after a walk of about five minutes under arcades 
something like those of the streets in Bern, emerged 
upon a handsome on the opposite side of which 
I recognised the Hotel d'Orient. This had attracted 
my attention from the deck of the Kahyle by its 
obviously good situation and its name blazoned in 
letters of two feet long upon the cornice of its fagade. 
I found, however, that the " hotel " only commenced 
with the third story of the edifice, that there were no 
bedrooms lower than the fourth, and that on this 
all were occupied ; and I was obliged to content 
myself with a small chamber and dressing-room on 
the fifth floor, which, in fact, consisted of a few 
apartments built above tlie original roof of the house. 
In three or four days, however, the departure of 
some guests placed a good-sized room on the floor 
below at my disposal, and in it I found myself suf- 
ficiently comfortable to remain for two months. 

The paucity of good hotel accommodation is a 
serious drawback to Algiers as a residence for invalids, 
especially where the lungs are supposed to be affected. 
The Hotel d'Orient is in the best situation, and the 



EXTENSIVE YIEW. 7 

rooms are airy and with an excellent aspect. Mine 
looked to tlie East, across the bay, upon Cape 
Matifou. Beyond this appeared the point of land 
behind which lay Dellys and the hills of the Great 
Kabylie, among which rose one or two peaks of 
Djerjera, the highest summits of the Northern Atlas, 
covered with eternal snow. In front was the harbour 
of Algiers, and just to the left the rock, once an 
island and now connected with the main by a cause- 
w^ay of stone, on which the Hghthouse stands. Im- 
mediately below I looked down on the Place Royale, 
an irregular shaped esplanade, of which the side 
towards the sea, closed only by a dwarf balustrade, 
serves as the rendezvous of the trading community, 
as well as the promenade of the fashionables of 
Algiers. Here a new comer finds an ample fund 
of amusement for the trouble of only looking out of 
his window. Arabs in their white bournouses, Jews 
in their bagging knee-breeches and blue-black turbans, 
Moorish women enveloped in white veils and white 
trowsers, leaving no part of their persons visible but 
the eyes and the stockingless feet, are mixed up in a 
dense throng with cloaked Spaniards, Zouaves, French 
officers, and ladies in the newest Parisian costume. 
A military band plays in the Place two or three days 
in the week, and troops are often paraded there. 
But these attractions are soon more than compensated 
by the fatigue of having to mount so high, which in 



8 ACCOMMODATION TOK INVALIDS. 

some cases of ailment would be impossible. But in 
this respect tlie Hotel de la Uegence and the Maison 
Garnie, over the Cafe d'ApoUon, which alone are 
equal to the Hotel d'Orient in situation, are no 
better. The Hotel de Paris is well managed and the 
charges reasonable ; but there is not an apartment in 
it from which a view of the sea can be obtained. It 
is, however, less lofty than the others. A new house, 
the Hotel de TEurope, is clean, and for a decided 
invalid is perhaps the most to be recommended ; but 
the charges are very high, and the situation incon- 
venient. An Enghshman of the name of Thurgar 
has likewise established a boarding-house about a 
mile out of the town. Nowhere, however, as far as 
I could learn, would an invalid find the comforts that 
await him in the towns of Southern Europe which 
are resorted to for the sake of their climate. The 
best course for such a one would be to bring with 
him one or two confidential servants, and to hire a 
furnished house in the neighbourhood. Apartments 
are rare, but they also are to be had occasionally 
in good situations. I would recommend any Enghsh- 
man in want of them to state his need to M. Lary, 
a jpdtissier in the Rue Bab-Azoun, whose skill in his 
art is only surpassed by his civility and attention to 
his customers, and from whom they will gain in- 
formation of any rooms likely to be vacant. The 
porter at the Hotel de la Regence likewise keeps 



CLIMATE OE ALGIERS. 9 

a list of lodgings to be let, and so do some of the 
shopkeepers in the town ; but a good deal of caution 
is requisite before engaging anything, especially if 
the hirer has a lady in his party. 

There is usually a great deal of rain at Algiers 
during the months of November, December, January, 
and February ; in the present year the two latter 
months followed the ordinary rule. In January there 
were sixteen, and in February seventeen days upon 
which rain fell. But of these there were very few in 
which it was not possible to take exercise out of doors 
for a considerable time. A storm generally gives some 
notice of its approach if the barometer is consulted. I 
never found the aneroid which I used — one constructed 
by Lerebour and Secretan of Paris — fail to give me 
warning, although it did once or twice raise a false 
alarm. It was my habit to observe it, and the dry 
and wet bulbs of a psychrometric thermometer by the 
same manufacturers, four times a day, at 8 a.m. and 
2, 6, and 11 p.m. ; and I soon became enough of a 
weather-prophet to take long walks and rides in 
the neighbourhood without ever getting more than 
one wetting, — which after all I should have escaped 
had I not unfortunately had a sluggish horse, and 
forgotten to put on spurs on leaving home. There 
is very little of the drizzling wet weather to which 
we are accustomed in England. The rain, when it 
falls at all, falls in pailfuls, ploughing deep furrows 



10 MILDNESS OF WINTER. 

in the soft friable stone of tlie steep Lills wliicli 
surround Algiers, and washing away the unmetalled 
roads which wind up them. On a level, the imme- 
diate result is the production of a deep soft mud, in 
which one sinks above the ankles. But a very few 
hours of sun dry up the soil, and a day or two 
converts the mud to dust. Between the periods of 
storm rains, too, there is generally an interval of two 
or three days of quite settled weather; and during 
these, excursions may be made to a distance of thirty 
or thirty- five miles even by a valetudinarian. Before 
the end of February I had crossed the Metidja in four 
different directions, and had traversed on foot or on 
horseback every portion of the Sahel, — the hilly 
country of the Littoral^ which separates the Metidja 
from the sea. The temperature of the atmosphere 
was that of an English May or June. On most days 
I could sit writing or reading in my room with the 
window open without feeling in the least chilly, 
although there was no carpet, and nothing to keep 
my feet from the stuccoed floor but a small mat made 
of the halfa-grass. The greatest observed height of 
the thermometer in my apartment during the month 
of January was 62^ Fahrenheit, the lowest 54*^, and 
the greatest variation in any one day only 7*^. This 
occurred on the 5th of the month ; and on no other 
day did the variation amount to 5°. In February the 
greatest observed height was 66^, the lowest 56°, and 



SOUTH WINDS THE COLDEST. 11 

the maximum variation in any one day less than 3i". 
The most generally prevailing wind was that from the 
north-west, which is invariably mild and refreshing 
as regards its temperature, although sometimes too 
violent for a decided invalid. The only days which 
I found formidable were those in w^hich the wind 
blew from a southern quarter, after much moisture 
had been precipitated. This^ which had descended on 
the Sahel in the form of rain, fell on the high plateaux 
of the Atlas in that of snoAv, and the blast from the 
south passing over the latter struck most piercingly 
whenever an ascent of the Sahel brought one within 
its range. The greatest peril which an invalid has to 
encounter during an Algerian winter undoubtedly 
arises from this cause. The snow on the high plains 
does not melt in general till the month of March ; and 
while it remains, it is extremely inexpedient for him 
to remove from the shelter which the Sahel affords, 
unless he sees a good steady breeze setting from the 
northwards. As the hills come close down to the 
sea, there is on fine days a constant temptation to be 
imprudent in this respect ; and the better the health 
of the patient, the more does he repine at being 
confined in taking his exercise to a single road, which 
is in fact all that is compatible with safety under such 
circumstances. Indeed my own experience would 
lead me to prefer Oran, the chief town of the western 
province, to Algiers, as a domicile for the winter. 



12 ADVANTAGES OF OR AN. 

Much less rain falls there; and the plateaux inland 
are not only considerably lower than in the meridian 
of Algiers, biit further removed from the coast. The 
pedestrian can get away from the town without the 
exertion of climbing a steep ascent of seven or eight 
hundred feet ; and although the surrounding country 
is inferior in beauty to the immediate neighbourhood 
of Algiers, it possesses perhaps greater interest for 
the botanist and geologist, and is particularly vrell 
adapted for horse-exercise. 



TOWN OF ALGIERS. 



13 



CHAPTER II. 



The lower part of Algiers has been almost entirely 
rebuilt since the French occupation ; and the intro- 
duction of European architecture has not been favour- 
able to picturesque effect. The Place Roy ale may be 
considered as the centre of the modern town. Two 
streets, the Rue Bab-el-Oued (Water Gate) and the Rue 
Bab-Azoun (Gate of Grief), lead out of it, the former 
in a northerly the latter in a southerly direction, to 
the site of the gates from which they took their 
names. They are composed of houses four or five 
stories in height, built over arcades. This is the case 
also with the Rue de la Marine, by which all travellers 
arriving by sea are obliged to pass. In some few 
instances the Moorish buildings have been retained in 
this locahty, but in most cases their entire destruction 
was requisite in order to carry out the line of street 
according to the Erench notions of architectural pro- 
priety; and those which were suffered to remain 
have been more or less altered. The great mosque 
(Djemmaa Kebir) which stands in the Rue de la 



14 TRACES OF EOMAN TOWN. 

Marine, has in front of it a colonnade taken from 
another mosque which was destroyed in forming the 
Place Eoyale. But the direction of the street com- 
pelled the adoption of a broken line in setting it up 
again, and the effect is extremely painful to the eye. 
An incidental result of making these new streets was 
to lay bare the foundations of the old Roman town, 
Icosium, on the site of which modern Algiers is built ; 
and to sbow how, in ages far remote from one another, 
similar conditions almost always produce similar 
arrangements. A Eoman street led up from the port 
as the Rue de la Marine does at the present time, and, 
compelled by the obstacle offered by the hill, divided 
itself into two branches corresponding very nearly 
with the new streets, and like them terminating at 
the Bab-el-Oued and Bab-Azoun. This last circum- 
stance was proved by the discovery of a Roman 
cemetery in eacb place; and as it is well known that 
the ancients never buried their dead inside the walls, 
we have in the facts distinct evidence of the limit 
beyond whicb the ancient town did not extend. The 
road which coincided with the Rue Bab-el-Oued led 
to a station called Casse Calventii, placed by the 
Itinerary of Antoninus thirty-two Roman miles off, 
and supposed by Algerian antiquaries to have occupied 
the site of Pouka, near Koleah. It passed from 
thence to Tipasa, and Julia Csesarea, the modern 
Cherchel. The other, following the course of the 



LIMIT OF ITS SIZE. 15 

Rue Bab-Azoim, led first to Riisgunia; near Cape 
Matifou, and from thence passed through Kabylie at 
no great distance from the coast, which it probably 
struck at all points where the nature of the shore 
allowed the formation of a marine town, and finally 
terminated at Carthage. Icosium could never have 
been a place of any magnitude ; for before the 
building of the causeway which now connects the 
mainland with the original Algiers, the island on which 
the lighthouse stands/'^ there could only be shelter 
for a few small vessels. What importance it possessed 
it probably owed to its position on the commercial 
road which traversed the north of Africa from Car- 
thage to Tangier. An Arabian historian, who wrote 
in the eleventh century of the Christian era,t states 
that there were then magnificent remains, of a magni- 
tude to suggest the belief that the place must have 
been the capital of an empire. He particularly speci- 
fies some porticoes and a theatre paved with mosaics 
representing figm-es of animals, and he mentions the 
wall of a large church, which, from its direction due 
east and west, was made use of by the Mahometans 
as a hellali (or means of orientation), when they 
performed their devotions. But besides the allowance 

* m Djeza'ir Beni-Mezai'rhana. " The islands of the children of 
MezaiThana." In the construction of the causeway, Khaireddeen 
Barbarossa is said to have made use of the materials of Eusgunia. 
The masses of stone -^ere brought across the bay and sunk to form 
a breakwater against the effects of the north and north-west winds. 

t n Bekri, quoted by Berbrugger, Icos'wn;, p. 10. 



16 ANCIENT REMAINS EXCAVATED. 



to be made for tlie exaggeration of Oriental writers, it 
must not be forgotten tliat the ancients, when they 
had the funds, set no bounds to their expenditure 
on public buildings. Icosium was a colony with the 
Latin franchise, fixed in the midst of a Berber popu- 
lation, and doubtless endowed with lands which had 
been taken from these, and which they continued to 
cultivate as villeins. On the destruction of Roman 
civilisation, they naturally recovered possession ; and 
it is probably their union with the Arab invaders that 
has given a peculiar character to the idiom spoken in 
Algiers and the immediate neighbourhood, — which, 
both in pronunciation and vocabulary, differs much 
from the Arabic of the country only a few miles off. 
The remains of the Eoman town, whatever their 
extent eight hundred years ago, have since that time 
disappeared. Excavations occasionally bring to light 
a mosaic pavement, a stone chair, a hand-mill, or the 
fragment of a statue ; and cut stones, obviously 
removed from their original position, are frequently 
seen in the foundations of Moorish buildings ; but 
the only monument which seems to be remaining in 
situ is a bas-relief over a gateway in the island, in a 
style indicating a very late period of art. 

The greater portion of the Moorish town is con- 
tained within the triangular area, which, rising from 
a base formed by the streets of Bab-el-Oued and 
Bab-Azoun, leans upon the steep hill immediately 



THE EAUXBOURG BAB-AZOUN. IJ 

in face of the sea, the vertex of the triangle being 
formed by the Kazbah, or citadel, which stands at a 
height of nearly four hundred feet. The whole of this 
space Hes within the Moorish walls, which still remain ^ 
on the two upper sides of the triangle. One of them, 
that to the south-east, is still pierced by an ancient 
gateway ; but the Water Gate and the Gate of Grief 
no longer remain. The latter received its name from 
the circumstance of offenders condemned to capital 
punishment being executed by throwing them on iron 
hooks which protruded from the walls by its side; 
and when the French marched into Algiers, they 
found rotting on the top the heads of the unfortunate 
crews of two brigs of war, which had formed part of 
their blockading squadron and been driven ashore in 
a storm. The gate itself was then cleared away, 
together with the Moorish buildings in the vicinity, 
and beyond it a new Fauxbourg has been since built, 
composed entirely of European houses. In this a 
handsome corn-market has been erected for the use of 
the agricultural tribes of the neighbourhood, who 
bring their produce thither ; and strangers, whose 
time is limited, will see much in a small space by 
visiting it at an early hour in the morning, as well as 
a caravanserai which is immediately opposite. In the 
latter they will find a picturesque assemblage of 
camels, mules, and asses, laden with all kinds of pro- 
duce, and natives of every variety of complexion, most 

c 



18 MOOEISH STREETS. 

of them sleeping, a few smoking, and some calling in 
the aid of the native smith to repair the shoes of their 
animals. The form of these, as well as of the imple- 
ments which are used, has, no doubt, remained the 
same for centmies ; and it is very curious to watch 
the way in which the operator manages his fire so 
as to consume as little fuel— generally the root of 
the dwarf palm — as is possible in effecting his 
task. 

Several streets rise from the level of the Rue Bab- 
el-Oued and Eue Bab-Azoun, converging more and 
more as they ascend the hill, until they meet in the 
immediate vicinity of the Kazbah. The steepness of 
the ascent would prevent the use of a carriage in 
these, even if they were wide enough to admit one ; 
but, in point of fact, there is not one broader than 
the Bows of Yarmouth, and most are even narrower. 
The principal one, which bears the name of the Street 
of the Kazbah, is cut in steps. Lateral alleys here 
and there connect these main lines with one another ; 
but the whole forms a labyrinth, out of which it is 
impossible for the puzzled European to find his way, 
except by remembering that if he mounts he will be 
sure in time to arrive at the citadel, and if he 
descends, no less certain ultimately to reach the sea. 
I do not believe that one person in a hundred, if con- 
ducted to the highest part of the town and then left 
to himself, would succeed in returning by the same 



INTERIOR OE HOUSES. 19 

course by which he had come. The sides of the 
streets are in general simply dead walls, with here 
and there a loop-hole above and a closed door below, 
the houses exhibiting no more individuality than the 
sheep of a flock. At the height of the first story, 
wooden corbels are sometimes seen supporting a 
second one, likewise with its dead wall, which ap- 
proaches even nearer than the floor below to the 
opposite tenement. Sometimes, especially in the cross 
alleys, the houses actually meet at the top, and the 
street becomes a mere arch. As you toil along it for 
the first time, not without some feeling of uneasiness 
at observing yourself the only European among a 
crowd of strange figures, of whose language you do 
not understand a word, you perhaps meet a troop of 
asses loaded with baskets of sand, and followed by a 
half-naked savage, whose looks do him injustice if he 
would feel any scruple in felling you with the cudgel 
he is employing upon the wretched brutes from whose 
frantic rush you despair of escaping. Of course you 
conclude that you have taken a wrong turn, and 
got into a very disagreeable neighbourhood. But 
this is altogether an error. There is, perhaps, a door 
standing open in the invariable dead wall. Look in, 
and you will see a charming court, surrounded by an 
arcade of marble columns. In the middle is a 
fountain, or perhaps some beautiful tree, such as in 
England we only find in the hot-house of a millionaire. 

c2 



20 SPLENDOUR OP INTERIORS. 

Passing under the arcade on a tesselated floor, you 
find a staircase, of whicli both the stairs and walls are 
covered with encaustic tiles, and which conducts to 
an open gallery, likewise running round the court. 
Prom this you may enter the chambers of the mansion, 
not by opening a door, but by simply withdrawing a 
curtain which masks the approach to each ; and in 
these you will see both the extent to which Oriental 
luxury can be carried, and the taste with which it 
adapts itself to the conditions of the cHmate. The 
floors are invariably of stucco or encaustic tiles : 
round the walls, which are painted in arabesques, run 
sofas covered with rich silk hangings and em- 
broidered with gold. Elegantly carved tables stand 
here and there, covered with knick-knacks of native 
workmanship, such as gold or silver essence boxes, 
fans made of ostrich feathers, and ostrich eggs carved 
in devices or suspended in a network of twisted gold 
and silk thread. The main light comes through the 
door by which you have entered from the open 
gallery ; sometimes there is no other whatever ; but 
when there is it proceeds from a narrow slit cul- 
minating in an ogee arch, and filled with elaborate 
stone tracery, through which a single sunbeam finds 
its way in a fragmentary state. These windows are 
made like the embrasures in a fortification, and con- 
tracted on the outer face of the wall to the simple 
loopholes which strike the eye of a stranger. There 



SPECIMENS STILL EXISTING. 21 

is no glass in them. On the stuccoed floor, there are 
one or two small carpets, and perhaps a lion's or 
panther's skin with the teeth and nails gilt. In the 
palmy days of Algerine piracy, both the town and the 
neighbourhood were full of mansions furnished in this 
style, and in the case of the latter surrounded with 
dehcious gardens. But the universal ruin of the 
Moorish population, which followed the French con- 
quest, has to a great extent obliterated the traces of 
the former magnificence. The country villas were at 
first wantonly destroyed by the conquerors, and the 
town houses subsequently stripped by their owners of 
everything valuable which could be carried away. In 
some instances the beautiful courts with their marble 
columns are occupied by the stores of an European 
shopkeeper ; in others the tenant has cut oblong holes 
in the outer walls and put sashes into them, and 
scarcely in any has there been attention paid to keep- 
ing up the ornamental repairs. Still, in a few houses, 
the visitor may yet gain an idea of what a Moorish 
interior must have been under the old regime. The 
house of the bishop, which before the invasion of the 
French was the palace of the Agha or War Minister, 
is, perhaps, the finest specimen in existence. On a 
smaller scale, but still very elegant and characteristic, 
is the house of the English consul, Mr. Bell. The 
supreme court of justice is also held in a genuine 
Moorish house, although modernized by covering the 



22 



THE KAZBAH 01^ ALGIERS. 



open court with a roof of glass. The public library 
and museum furnishes yet another example of the 
kind ; and this last and the house of the consul are 
the more striking, as the approach to them is through 
streets of the most unprepossessing character, and 
least likely to inspire an expectation of the beauty of 
the interiors. 

The Kazbah is rather a fortified palace than a 
citadel in the proper sense of the word. It is com- 
pletely commanded by a hill in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood, on which formerly stood a fortification, 
called the Port of the Tagarins ; while this in its turn 
is dominated by the Fort of the Emperor, so called 
from its being the point selected by Charles V. of 
Spain as the base of his operations when he laid siege 
to Algiers. But it promised perfect security to the 
Deys against their own tumultuous soldiery ; and 
shortly after the bombardment of the town by Lord 
Exmouth, the seat of government was transported 
thither in a single night by Megheur Ali, the successor 
of Omar, under whom the bombardment had been 
inflicted, and who was strangled by his own subjects 
the next year. The Djenina, the ancient palace, stood 
in the Place Royale, overlooking the sea, and the 
existing clock-tower occupies the site of a part of the 
terrace which belonged to it. The circuit of the 
Kazbah, as may be supposed, included everything 
which was necessary to the completeness of Turkish 



RUINED IN THE INVASION. 23 

life — among the rest a handsome mosque, which is 
now used as an artillery barrack. The remainder is 
appropriated to other military purposes ; and the 
work of destruction and alteration has been carried to 
such an extent as to make it difficult to comprehend 
the connexion which formerly existed between such 
portions as are still left. 

It happened by a singular fatality that, through the 
neglect of the chief of the staff, this alone, of all the 
buildings in Algiers, was shamefully plundered im- 
mediately after the occupation of the town. The 
mischief began by some persons taking mere trifles 
by way of souvenirs^ but their example was quickly 
followed by others whose rapacity changed the system 
of petty thieving into downright pillage. A great 
deal was said at the time on the subject, and grave 
charges of enormous peculation made against General 
Bourmont himself. But as regards the treasure 
which was laid up there, the charge of malversation 
appears to be without foundation ; and there is no 
reason to doubt that the whole found its way to the 
treasury of the Erench government. 

There are several mosques in Algiers still appro- 
priated to the use of the Moorish population, but 
some have been converted into Christian churches. I 
could not learn whether the cathedral was or was not 
one of these, but it has every appearance of being so. 
The so-called New Mosque (Djemmaa Djedid) stands 



24 INTERIOR OE MOSQUES. 

at the corner of the Place Royale and Rue de la 
Marine, and is being restored at the expense of the 
Government. There is a tradition that it was built by 
a Christian slave, who had been an architect. When 
it Avas finished, some one called the attention of the 
Dey to the fact that the ground plan was of the form 
of a cross; and the unfortunate artist expiated by 
death what was regarded as an intentional insult to 
the faith of Islam. When the Prench first acquired 
possession of the town, they strictly prohibited all 
Christians from attempting to enter a mosque, but 
now no objection is made either by the conquerors or 
the conquered. The raw is not healed, but the poor 
jade is too much exhausted to wince when wrung. 
There is, however, little gratification for curiosity to 
be obtained by shocking the religious prejudices of 
the population. A mosque is uniformly like a church 
of several aisles, stripped of its pews and everything 
else except its pulpit. At one end is a kind of niche 
(inihrah), which is intended to indicate the direction 
of Mecca, towards which the faithful should turn 
while repeating their prayers, and by the side of this 
the seat of the sheikh, whose duty it is to read the 
lessons from the Koran and to preach occasionally. 
The floors are covered with mats or carpets, and 
before passing on to them the votary takes off his 
shoes. In a court of the mosque is a fountain for 
the requisite ablutions before commencing religious 



COUUT OF THE KADI. 25 

worship. The walls of the interior are in most cases 
painted, and decorated all over with verses of the 
Koran ; candles are burnt by the side of the mihrab, 
and lighted lamps hung from the arches of the roof. 
Occasionally there is a sort of vestry where instruc- 
tion is given in the Koran, or one aisle of the mosque 
is appropriated to the purpose ; and to almost all 
mosques of importance a small room is attached 
serving for a law-court, where the ordinary questions 
of litigation between Mussulmans are decided on the 
basis of the Koran. It is rather amusing to witness 
the proceedings of the court. Women are not allowed 
to enter it, but when their evidence is required they 
give it through a small window of a few inches square 
which opens into an adjoining apartment. Those 
which I heard were very voluble and far more vehe- 
ment than the male witnesses; and in one or two 
instances were obviously snubbed by the Kadi for 
wandering from the point at issue, but with as little 
effect as is generally produced by a similar proceeding 
upon an Irish woman at Bow Street. 

Besides the mosques, there are several marabouts 
in Algiers and the neighbourhood. The word in its 
original application denotes a saint, but is also em- 
ployed to signify the burial-place of such a one, to 
which a sacred character is always considered to 
attach. There is no form of consecration used by the 
Mahometans either for their places of sepulture or 



26 THE MARABOUTS OP BARBAEY. 

religious worship ; but no nation in the world is more 
strongly afifected by that natural instinct which regards 
with pecuhar interest localities connected with re- 
markable personages. Clement of Alexandria indulges 
in a scornful invective against the pagan religions of 
his time, on the ground that their temples were in 
almost all cases built over the tombs of dead men ; * 
but St. Augustine, only two centuries afterwards, has 
inserted in the greatest of his works the details of 
several miraculous cures he supposes to have been 
effected by attendance on a Christian temple after its 
sanctification by a portion of the relics of the proto- 
martyr Stephen. f The marabout of North Africa is 
a very different kind of character from the dancing 
dervish of the East. He is a man of piety and 
learning, according to the Mahometan standard, who 
devotes himself to w^orks of religion and benevolence. 
Many marabouts have been possessed of large fortunes, 
which they employed in the relief of the poor, or in 
works of public utility, especially sinking wells, — a 
kind of public service which is always appreciated in 
hot countries. Chastity — or at least the absence of 
any disposition to sensuality, — self-sacrifice, and, above 
all things, the freedom from any tendency to avarice, 
are essentials in the character of a marabout. If to 
these qualities be added a punctual performance of 
all the enjoined religious exercises, and a thorough 

* Protrept. p. 28, Sylburg. f Be civit. Dei. xxii. 11. 



THEIR NUMEROUS TOMBS. 27 

acquaintance with the theological literature of Islam, 
he rises still higher in the estimation of his country- 
men ; and if he possesses, over and above, an aptitude 
for influencing others by oratory, there is scarcely any 
limit to the power he may obtain. The father of Abd- 
el-Kader was a marabout ; and as there is always in 
the mind of men a sort of presumption that high 
qualities are to some extent hereditary, this circum- 
stance was extremely favourable to the son in the early 
part of his career. 

The whole of Algeria is covered with the tombs of 
these saints, which generally form the nucleus of a 
general cemetery. Large sums are paid for the 
privilege of interment in the immediate neighbour- 
hood of the holy man; and sometimes some other 
marabout of not inferior reputation to the first is by 
his own desire buried near him/'^ Occasionally 
legends are related by the oulcil (or keeper of the 
marabout) connecting the tenants of the neigh- 
bouring graves with one another; and in all cases 
there is a history of the saint who first caused a 
sacred character to be attached to the locality. A 
collection of these traditions would be a complete 
parallel to the hagiology of the medigsval church, and 
in many instances would even be identical with it. 

* As the old propliet of Bethel ordered that his sons should 
bury him by the side of the man of God whose death he had occa- 
sioned. 



28 GROWTH OF LEGENDS. 

The reason of this is obvious enough. In both the 
one case and the other the historical details are little 
more than the features which the imagination of the 
narrator has given to a story, the primary object of 
which is to illustrate the ideal which has been formed 
of the character of its hero; and as the legend is 
repeated year after year, the original materials are 
continually moulded more and more into a shape 
suitable for this purpose ; until at last the result, if 
tested by common rules of evidence, shocks all com- 
mon sense. These traditional tales are no more 
" lying legends " than they are facts. They may be 
more fitly described as religious romances than anything 
else ; and their function was — making allowance for 
the difference of creed, and the different modes of 
communicating knowledge — very much the same as 
that performed by religious tracts in the present day. 
But the ideal of humanity in the Middle Ages was 
by no means unlike that which prevails among the 
votaries of Islam. The bold warrior, without fear 
and without reproach, dedicating his life to the pro- 
pagation of his religious faith by means of his good 
sword, and the bare-footed monk, as superior to the 
temptations of the world as his military brother to its 
terrors, are precisely the kind of characters which a 
Mahometan can best understand, and with which he 
will most sympathise. Strong faith (whatever its 
form), and boundless self-sacrifice (whatever its shape) 



ENDOWMENT OF CHAPELRIES. 29 

inspired by that faith, were the common possession of 
Richard Coeur de Lion and Saladin, of St. Louis and 
the people for whose conversion or extirpation his life 
was freely offered. 

A natural consequence of the sacred character 
which attaches to these tombs is that a mosque very 
commonly is built close by, and funds are bequeathed 
for the purpose of maintaining religious worship 
therein. Sometimes a caravanserai is added for the 
accommodation of pilgrims who visit the tomb ; and 
in one case, that of Sidi-Bou-Medine, a marabout of 
extraordinary estimation in the neighbourhood of 
Tlem^en, there is a small chamber in which devotees 
are accustomed to sleep in the hope of receiving 
supernatural communications during the hours of rest. 
The endowments of these chapelries, as they may be 
called, are sometimes very considerable, or rather 
were so before their confiscation by the French.^* In 

* This was effected by an arret, dated March 23d, 1843. The 
following balance-sheet of a small marabout (Wali-Dadah) in Algiers 
was made out in the year following the French occupation : — 

RECEIPTS. 

PIASTRES. 

Ana (rent charge) on the farm of Wali-Dadah, situated on 



the left bank of the Harash near the Maison Carree . . 202 5 

Do. on two warehouses in Algiers .... 37 

Do. on a lot of land 12 

Rent of three small houses 124*5 

Do. of an entresol 15*5 

Do. of a caravanserai 12 



403-5 



30 



IMPOVERISHED POPULATION. 



some cases there is attached to them a school, in 
which gratuitous instruction is given to the children 
of the poor; and in one, at Constantino, there is a 
theological college of great celebrity, where I saw the 
professor, an old man of an intelligent countenance, 
giving a lecture on the Koran to pupils from all parts 
of the world. But in most instances the funds are 
not more than enough to provide for the sustentation 
of the fabric and the religious worship, and to furnish 
alms for the poor who frequent the latter. Every- 
where throughout Algeria, one meets with marabouts 
deserted and in ruins. The impoverishment of the 
native population coming on the back of the confisca- 
tion of the permanent fund was no doubt the principal 

EXPENDITURE. 

PIASTRES. 



Payment to the Imaum 24'5 

Do. Reader 18 

Do. Preacher 24 

Oil for lamps 96 

Mats 12 

Washing 30 

Sundries 12 



Balance . . 187 
403-5 



The balance goes to the OuJdl, or steward, who in this particular 
case was a Turkish official employed in the commissariat. But the 
oukil is generally obliged to keep a KJwdja, or secretary, to make up 
his accounts, and in some cases a payment has to be made to Mecca 
or Medina. Provision for the poor worshippers would likewise have 
to be made ; but in the balance-sheet, as a set off against such 
omissions, it may be remarked that only money payments are put 
down. There is no mention either of produce rents, or of the 
offerings of devotees at the shrine, both of which "would in most 
instances be very large. 



MOSQUE OF SIDI ABD-ER-RAHMAN. 3] 

cause of this, although in some instances war has 
been the agent of destruction. 

The marabout and mosque of Sidi Abd-er-Kahman 
are in a good state of preservation, and the European 
traveller will do well to visit them. But they are 
much frequented, especially on Fridays, by the Moorish 
ladies, and it would be a great breach of decorum to 
attempt to enter till they have taken their departure, 
as women lay aside their veils while performing their 
devotions, resuming them at the door as they leave 
the mosque. Their features, with the exception of the 
eyes, are extremely ugly : the straight coarse lips and 
heavy nose bespeak a lamentable want of intelligence 
or dehcacy of feeling, and their voices, when they chat- 
ter to one another, are singularly harsh. When the 
congregation is gone, the marabout may be entered in 
the company of the oukil ; but one is expected to take 
one's shoes off and leave them at the door. The tomb 
is covered with carpets, and lights are burning con- 
stantly upon it. Votive offerings, in the shape of 
shawls, flags, and decorated ostrich shells, are sus- 
pended about; the whole floor of the apartment is 
carpeted, and several cats are walking about upon it. 
The cat, perhaps from its cleanliness, is a favourite 
animal with the Moors, and some of the marabouts 
possess a fund specially appropriated for the mainte- 
nance of several. They have also inherited a supersti- 
tion, many thousand years old, that animals haunt 



32 GARDEN OF MAEENGO. 

sacred places; and take great pains on this account 
to attract the birds to their cemeteries, by strewing 
acorns about the tombs, and forming small holes in 
the tombstones to hold the rain-water, that they may 
be induced to come to drink. 

From the cemetery adjoining the marabout of Sidi 
Abd-er-Rahman, one may easily descend into the gar- 
den of Marengo, or, as it was at first called, Jardin des 
Condamnes, from having been laid out by military 
convicts. This is a public promenade, and is much 
frequented by the European part of the population of 
Algiers v^henever the military band plays there, which 
it does two or three times in the week ; and also on 
Sundays at precisely the same hour as the afternoon 
service in the Cathedral. It is laid out in terraces 
after the manner of all French public gardens ; only, 
where one would see limes and beeches in Europe, 
here are palms and cypresses. The most unequivo- 
cally southern production, however, is the prickly pear 
or Barbary fig, a huge cactus-like plant, with large 
flat oval leaves growing out of one another. It is not, 
I beheve, indigenous, but, like the aloe, was brought 
from South America to Spain. It grows in North 
Africa to an enormous size, requires no trouble, and 
makes better hedges than the aloe. At one time it 
was believed that it might be used as food for the 
cochineal insect, but this expectation was frustrated. 
It is, however, extremely useful in many ways. After 



MONUMENTS TO NAPOLEON. 33 

the figs which grow round the leaf have been gathered, 
the leaf itself, in spite of the prickles with which it is 
covered, which deter every other animal, is a favourite 
food of the camel. The stalk is used for fuel. In 
order to make a hedge of this plant, all that is requi- 
site is to scratch a row of small holes in the ground, 
and set a single leaf in each, and from them, without 
any further attention, a hedge is formed in four or 
five years which will keep out any animal but a 
camel. Old hedges, however, are a favourite harbour 
for scorpions, for whom they furnish an effectual 
cover. 

In the Jardin de Marengo is a colossal bust of 
the first Emperor Napoleon ; and it is to be wished 
that it were the only monument to his memory in the 
place. But not far from it is another which violates 
every dictate of good policy as much as it does every 
principle of artistic taste. On the top of a column is 
a half-globe, on the top of which is stuck an iron spear. 
On the east and west sides of the column are the 
names of the victories won by the great commander ; 
on the north, those of the capitals which he had occu- 
pied by a victorious army ; while on the south, an eagle, 
all beak and claws, hovers over a hat, of the peculiar kind 
which the Emperor used to wear, from which are sus- 
pended the insignia of the legion of honour. Under 
this delicate symbohsm, which, as far as its execution is 
concerned, might have been carved by a stone-cutter's 

D 



34 DISTASTE OF THE NATIVES 

apprentice, are the words, "II avait reve cette coii- 
quete." ^ Such is considered the most appropriate 
monument to set up to a man whose favourite saying 
was, I shall go down to posterity with the Code in 
my hand," in a country where the conciliation of the 
native population is a necessary condition of converting 
a source of enormous expense into one of even mode- 
rate profit. It should be said, however, that this 
monument was not set up by the present dynasty, 
but by its predecessor, under the influence of a desire 
to make political capital out of old military associations 
which were imagined to be no longer dangerous. 
When I first saw this specimen of GaUic Algerian art, 
an aged Moor happened to be basking in the sun by 
its base, gazing with fixed eyes upon the sea. I fancied 
he might be recalHng the piratical days of his youth, 
and pondering over the mystery of Providence which 
had given him and his into the hands of the infidels. 
He looked like an old Jew by the waters of Babylon,' 
but with a grief too deep for anything but curses. No 
doubt the Erench, by acts of unflinching severity, have 
effectually cowed the native population for at least a 
generation ; but they have as yet done but little to 
reconcile them to the yoke, and less to inspire a love for 
European civilisation such as they understand it. 

I was exceedingly amused one night in the theatre 
by the proceedings of a young native chief of about 
twenty, who was brought there by a sort of Mentor, 



EOR PRENCH CIYILISATION. 35 

an old Moor, apparently a Prencli official, with a view 
of cultivating liis taste. The subject of the play was 
one adapted to the display of that exaggerated senti- 
ment and morbid sympathy which seems essential to 
the success of the modern French drama. A woman 
who has been privately married to an artist and borne 
him a son, stimulated by personal vanity, separates 
herself from him and goes on the stage, where she 
obtains a vast reputation, and finally marries an Eng- 
lish nobleman. Various ckcumstances contribute to 
bring about an interview between her and her injured 
husband ; and, of course, a great deal of passion is 
displayed. The young Arab, who had been terribly 
bored with the early part, here left off biting his nails 
and brightened up, in the expectation that corporal 
punishment was about to be inflicted on the peccant 
dame. He applauded with his wliole soul : " Ah I il 
va la battre. Bravo! Fais done!'' But he was 
doomed to be disappointed. The lady, flung sternly 
from the arms of her indignant husband, did indeed 
fall flat on the stage : but no whip was brought, and 
although a little consoled for a time by the hopes of a 
duel which appeared looming in the distance shortly 
afterwards, young Juba left the house at last in utter 
disgust, exclaiming "Quelle betise!" I confess I 
rather felt with him, although I had not shared his 
expectations. 

The acting at the Algiers theatre is extremely bad, 
D 2 



36 THEATRE AND CLUB. 

and the selection of pieces execrable. But there are 
two or three very fair singers ; and when an opera 
is given, an agreeable evening's amusement may be 
had for a very small sum, the best places in the 
house only costing three francs. Every one walks 
thither, and walks home afterwards ; there being so 
few parts of the town accessible to carriages, that 
pedestrianism is a necessity for many ladies, and is a 
fashion for all. Order is so well kept in the streets 
that not the slightest annoyance of any kind is to be 
apprehended. Except the theatre there is no kind of 
public amusement for the upper classes, beyond such 
as is furnished by the Cercle," a club which com- 
prises the chief military and civil functionaries, and to 
which strangers may be admitted by the recommen- 
dation of a member. There is a moderate library 
there, and a fair collection of French periodicals, be- 
sides billiard and card rooms, of which the Erench 
avail themselves from morning till night. 



NEIGHBOUEHOOD OE ALGIERS. 



37 



CHAPTER III. 



The immediate neighbourliood of Algiers is unsur- 
passed iu beauty by any part of Nortli Africa. The 
mass of hills which backs it sends out a branch 
which runs nearly westward for nine or ten miles, 
having an elevation which varies from six hundred 
to more than a thousand feet. It terminates at 
Rous-el-Knathar (the Cape of the Ruins), and through- 
out its whole extent approaches very closely to the 
sea-shore, on which side its fall is so rapid, that 
to ascend is in most parts extremely difficult, and 
the space which is left for cultivation is sometimes 
very small. Just outside the Bab-el-Oued, omnibuses 
are constantly to be found, which will convey the 
traveller about three miles in this direction on a 
pretty fair road. He will pass through the village 
of St. Eugene, where are a few houses most roman- 
tically situated, commanding a sea-view something 
like that from the under-clifF in the Isle of Wight. 
It is rather a favourite quarter of the English who 
visit Algiers. The route carrossable goes about a mile 



38 POINTS PESCADE. 

and a half beyond St. Eugene as far as Pointe 
Pescade, where there is a ruined Moorish fort, armed 
by a few cannon probably taken from Christian 
prizes in the days of piracy. They are all ship-guns, 
and are allowed to perish with rust on their rotting 
carriages, which in some cases have already given 
way. A part of the buildings which remain serves 
as a barrack for a few Prench soldiers, whose wives 
take in washing. The decaying bastion was em- 
ployed as a drying-ground when I visited the place, 
from which an admirable view of Cape Matifou 
and the mountains of Kabylie may be obtained. 
Very soon after passing Pointe Pescade the road 
changes into a path which can only be traversed 
on foot or on a mule. I attempted it one day on 
a steady old Arab horse, and found it very difficult. 
The seaward slope of the hills is in some parts so 
very steep, and the soil altogether so friable, that 
a heavy fall of rain is sure to wash away the path 
in many places, and in others, where the track is not 
so close to the sea, to make a watercourse of it, and 
fill it with blocks of stone. On the faith, however, 
of a map which represented the path as rounding 
Cape Pous-el-Knathar, I persevered ; but it cost me 
nearly three hours of very fatiguing riding to advance 
little more than six miles. At last I arrived at 
Rous-el-Knathar, and looked about for some ancient 
ruins which were said to exist in the neighbourhood. 



CAPE OF THE RUINS. 39 

But they are entirely level with the ground, and 
overgrown with dwarf palms and lentisque, the 
common brushwood of the country. I should not 
even have guessed the fact of their existence; but 
being in despair at the length of the journey, I made 
my way with much difficulty through the brushwood 
to a cottage, the inhabitant of which luckily proved 
to be a Prenchman, — almost all of the settlers along 
the coast are Spaniards, — and he told me that 1 was 
standing on the object of my search. My attention 
being thus directed to the matter, I did soon after- 
wards observe a stone with an almost obhterated 
Latin inscription on it ; but this was so defaced, that 
I could not have decyphered it had I devoted twenty- 
four hours to the task, and the question now was 
how to get home, for there appeared some symptoms 
of an approaching storm. To return by the way 
I had come was very objectionable, but the path 
round the cape had thinned off mto a mere sheep- 
track, and looked dangerous even for a pedestrian. 
I dismounted, and went some way along it to see 
if there was any sign of horses or mules having 
passed ; but there was nothing of the kind. I then 
thought of gaining the crest of the mountain and 
descending on the other side, instead of turning the 
point; but the thickness of the brushwood stopped 
me before I had got fifty yards, and the horse, 
stumbling over the blocks of stone which lay 



40 PASSAGE ROUND THE CAPE. 

concealed beneath tliis overgrowth, had great diffi- 
culty in keeping his feet. There was nothing for it 
but to try the path, which the French colonist assured 
me continued so bad as it looked only for two or 
three hundred yards. My steed did not like the 
performance of the feat any more than myself. I 
had intended to drive him before me as the Swiss 
mountaineers do with their horses, holding them back 
by the tail in the very steep parts; but in this 
arrangement he was by no means disposed to ac- 
quiesce. No, the post of honour belonged to me ; 
and if I wished to pass the headland at all, it was for 
me to lead. Without the least display of viciousness, 
he placed his fixed determination beyond the pos- 
sibility of doubt, and at last we commenced our 
march, I leading with the bridle in my hand, and 
continually expecting to have him roll over upon me, 
and carry me with himself down the cliff. But 
happily we achieved our dangerous undertaking with- 
out accident, and after half a quarter of a mile were 
fairly on the other side of the cape, when the hill 
receded, and another mile over dunes of sand 
brought us to the village of Guyot-ville, from which 
a good road meets the main hue from Algiers to 
Koleah. 

Before the French invasion, the side of the hills 
below which the road to St. Eugene and its con- 
tinuation passes, was studded with Moorish villas, of 



SPANISH SETTLERS. 41 

which ahnost all are now in ruins. They are perched 
in the most romantic sites, which could only have 
been reached by mule tracks, and these are now 
very often effaced by the overgrowth of an African 
vegetation. The pedestrian who explores the neigh- 
bourhood of Algiers must not suppose that by fol- 
lowing a path he will be sure or even likely to arrive 
either at a village or some well-frequented thorough- 
fare. In the majority of cases he will find that the 
track leads to some small clearance, or to a ruined 
villa, in one or two rooms of which a Spaniard has 
fixed his quarters, cultivating a small patch of the 
domain of the former owner, and letting his goats 
browse upon the brush which has grown over the 
rest. In some instances he will come upon a thicket 
of prickly pear, the representative of a formerly 
existing garden, of v/hich this plant formed the fence. 
Very many paths, which twenty years ago were 
regular thoroughfares, have been stopped by the 
Spanish settlers. All that these want is communi- 
cation between their own huts and Algiers, where 
they sell their produce ; and the consequence is that 
they lend the little assistance which is required, in 
addition to the natural influences of the climate, to 
obliterate the track beyond their own settlement. 
By this means they keep solitary Arabs, who are 
much addicted to pilfering, away from their domiciles, 
the security of which is often increased by the pre- 



42 SAYAGE DOGS. 

sence of a large and ferocious mastiff, not tied up, 
and altogether indiscriminating in his antipathy to 
strangers. These savage dogs are the greatest 
nuisance in the whole of the Phaz, as the neighbour- 
hood of Algiers is called, and really constitute the 
only danger which awaits the traveller in his rambles. 
You meet with them again among the nomad Arabs 
on the plateaux of the Atlas, but there their presence 
is more justifiable, and one is not attacked unawares. 
But in the Phaz, the traveller is never safe if he 
deviates from the high road. Without the least 
warning, one or two of the brutes rush upon him 
from some hut which he then perceives for the first 
time. They are its chief guardians, the owner being 
probably away tending his goats, or clearing a spot 
of ground of bush with a view to sowing it next year, 
and having left none but children at home. If you 
are on foot, you stoop and pick up a stone, or at least 
affect to do so, and retire, facing the enemy in an 
attitude of menace, as rapidly as prudence allows. 
If you are on horseback, the case is worse, unless 
you ride with a long hunting-whip, which the "French 
officers, when travelling among the Arab tribes, 
often do. The dogs avoid your front and rear with 
the greatest sagacity, and charge the flank of the 
horse and the rider's legs. 

Above the village of St. Eugene, one' of the few 
Moorish villas which has escaped the destruction of 



ENERGY OF THE CLERGY. 43 

the war,* is used as a seminary for theological 
students, and a country residence of the Bishop of 
Algiers. The see has since its first constitution been 
filled by prelates of great zeal and intelligence, and 
the influence of the clergy has done much towards 
improving the character of the European part of the 
population. It is difficult to conceive a worse moral 
condition than that of Algeria for some years after 
the invasion. The first bishop, M. Dupuch, found 
on his arrival at Algiers, in 1839, two priests who 
performed the service in a mosque which had been 
converted into a church, and a few sisters of charity, 
who devoted themselves to teaching orphan children, 
as well as attendance in the hospitals. A small 
chapel at Gran, and another at Bona, with one priest 
at each, comprised the whole of the ecclesiastical 
establishment in the French possessions of North 
Africa. 

Irrespectively of other less ostensible forms of im- 
morality, the number of illegitimate births was, on the 
average of the six years from 1831 to 1836, no less 
than 244 in the lOOO.f In seven years' time, the 
bishop, almost entirely at his own cost and that of 
his friends, had established forty-seven churches and 
chapels, and forty almonries of hospitals, prisons. 



At the time of the invasion it was the residence of the French 
consul, 

f It was 72 in the 1000 for the whole of France. 



44 LIBERALITY OF FIRST BISHOP. 

penitentiaries, and other institutions, which employed 
thirty-nine regular and three supernumerary priests, 
besides a large number of sisters of charity. Several 
orphan asylums were set on foot by him, and also a 
house of Trappists at Staoueli, the result of which 
latter has been not only the successful cultivation of a 
large tract of land on the edge of the Metidja, but the 
collection of a series of important meteorological obser- 
vations. In these efforts M. Dupuch not only spent 
all his private fortune, but involved himself in debt to 
the extent of £20,000. One of the first acts of the 
present Emperor of the French, as President of the 
Republic, was to set on foot a commission to inquire 
into this subject ; and the result was, that the Govern- 
ment entered into an arrangement with the creditors 
for the discharge of obligations which were justly con- 
sidered as a debt of the French nation. M. Pavy, the 
successor of M. Dupuch, carried on the work which 
the other had begun, with no less tact than vigour ; 
and so far as French power is consolidated in Northern 
Africa, it is mainly due to the moral influence of the 
clergy. They operate upon the natives, not by formal 
attacks on their creed, but by those works of charity 
which are common to Christianity and Islam, and 
which, more than any other religious act, are appre- 
ciated by the votaries of the latter. 

The hospitals especially, into which the Moslem 
population is freely admitted, and the service of which 



SISTERS OF CHARITY. 45 

is, in many cases, performed by females of one or other 
of the religious orders, exercise a powerful influence, 
and most deservedly so, over the conquered race. I 
visited one of these — the civil hospital at Oran — 
and was exceedingly struck with the appearance of 
cleanhness, order, comfort, and even cheerfulness, 
which reigned throughout. The calm demeanour of 
the sisters seemed to be felt like a sunbeam in the 
chambers of pain and death. There was no sourness 
of look, no parade of self-devotion, no expression 
of the least wish for anything but more ample space 
to enable them to receive all patients that offered. 
I talked of the unhealthiness of the summer season, 
when the wards would be full of fever-patients ; 
but I could not elicit a word implying that they 
themselves would then be exposed to greater risk, 
or compelled to greater labour. The Apostle's ex- 
hortation to let works of mercy be done with cheer- 
fulness came forcibly into my mind, when I thought 
of the conventional unction in which the philanthro- 
pists of London platforms are wont to indulge. This 
hospital at Oran was the only instance I saw in 
all Algeria of attention to sanitary precautions even in 
the minutest details. At Algiers, indeed, the arrange- 
ments of the military hospital are considered very 
good. It occupies the site of a country palace of the 
Deys, about a mile outside the Bab-el-Oued, and con- 
siderable pains have been taken to secure cleanhness. 



46 PEVEH IN SUMMER. 

good ventilation, and shade for tlie inmates ; and 
a thermometer is placed in every ward. But with all 
this, I saw the attendants bring the slop-pails and 
empty them on the earth immediately by the walls of 
the wards, which are long buildings of one story high, 
running parallel to each other. In the course of a 
short time the whole space must become saturated 
with animal matter ; for the proceeding which I wit- 
nessed was obviously the usual one. There were some 
few cases of fever in this hospital even at the time of 
my visit, in the month of February; but the great 
accession, over the whole of Algeria, is in the months 
of July, August, and September, when the fatigues of 
the harvest, added to the natural insalubrity of the 
season — -^omiferi grave tempus anni — multiply this 
form of disease. In the province of Oran the unusual 
abundance of the crops last year (1857) had aggravated 
the evil beyond the average scale. Anxious to profit 
by his good fortune, the poor colonist redoubled his 
efforts to get the harvest in ; his strength in many 
instances gave way ; and I was informed that there 
were numerous cases of the corn remaining unreaped 
from the circumstance of its owner having been com- 
pelled to take refuge in the hospital. 

One of the most useful of the institutions which 
grew up under the auspices of the first bishop of 
Algeria was the orphan asylum at Ben-Aknoun, about 
five miles to the south of Algiers. It was estabhshed 



ORPHAN SCHOOLS OE AGEICULTURE. 47 

by a Jesuit of the name of Brumault, not only for the 
purposes of charity, but with a view to show that with 
proper precautions the chmate of Algeria might be 
endured by European constitutions even during the 
tender age of childhood. The experiment was suc- 
cessful. A number of orphans, from the age of seven 
years, were employed in agriculture, as well as in- 
structed in the ordinary branches of education ; and 
the mortality among them was little greater than that 
among the children of the French peasantry. En- 
couraged by the result, the Pere Brumault set up 
another orphan asylum at Bouffarik ; and a third was 
subsequently established near Oran on the same prin- 
ciples. After the experiment ceased to be doubtful, 
the government enabled the conductors of the under- 
taking to enlarge their plan, by assisting them with a 
grant of 21^ francs monthly for each child. Some of 
the departments of Erance sent orphan children to 
these establishments, which indirectly serve as agri- 
cultural schools for the colony. 

Up to the end of the year 1854, there had been 
built at the expense of the state, independently of those 
due to private efforts, thirty-seven churches, two Pro- 
testant temples, and three mosques ; and the numbers 
of the first and the last have increased since that date 
to a considerable extent. The establishment then 
consisted of the bishop, who received 20,000 francs 
a-year, with an allowance of 5,000 francs for travelling 



48 PROTESTANTS AND JEWS. 

expenses and the salary of two secretaries ; two vicars- 
general at 3,600 francs, and two others whose post 
was honorary ; eight canons at 2,400 francs each ; and 
sixty-eight secular priests, of which those in the principal 
villages received 2,500 francs annually, and the others 
1,800. Besides these there were twenty vicars and 
ten auxiliary priests, each receiving 1,800 francs. It 
cannot be doubted that this number is continually 
increasing. The Cathedral at Algiers is extremely 
well attended at all the services, and the behaviour of 
the congregation perfectly decorous. Some of the 
highest functionaries set an excellent example of atten- 
tion to public religious worship, as well as of a moral 
private life ; and the influence of this conduct, added 
to the energy and tact of the principal ecclesiastics, is 
certainly operating to purge the colony gradually of 
the vile habits imported by the flood of adventurers 
which came in first after the conquest. 

A French Protestant service is performed in Algiers 
every Sunday at noon, but the attendance is very small. 
The Lutherans and Calvinists are united in one consis- 
tory under a Calvinist pastor as president. There are 
a great number of Jews, not only at Algiers, but also 
at Oran and Constantine. At the first-mentioned 
place they are continually gaining more and more the 
monopoly of the native traffic. In one or two streets 
only are the shops occupied by Moors, who are 
chiefly employed in making shoes. The Moorish shop, 



MOORISH SHOPS. 49 

or rather stall, is nothing more than a room of very 
narrow dimensions, with the side next the street taken 
out of it. In the middle of it squats the owner, cross- 
legged and barefooted, so near to the shelves on the 
walls that either he or his workmen — for there are often 
two or three — can reach anything that he wishes with- 
out rising. The slippers are left in a corner of the 
apartment near the street, above which the shop is ele- 
vated two or three feet. Every now and then work is 
suspended in order to take a cup of coffee, which costs 
only a sou including the lump of sugar with which it 
is sweetened. It is extremely strong, and is not cleared 
from the grounds, which, indeed, are always swallowed 
as imhesitatingly as the raisins in a plum-pudding by 
an Englishman. 

The Moorish shops which abound the most, 
next to the shoemakers, are those of the embroi- 
derers, and after them the barbers. The natives 
shave their whole head, except a small tuft on 
the crown, just where the tonsure of a Romish priest 
appears ; and the head is not so easily operated 
upon by its owner as the chin. All barbers' shops are 
furnished with a bench that goes all round, on which 
the candidates squat, waiting their turn for the services 
of the experienced operator. " One learns to shave,'' 
says the native proverb, " on the heads of orphans." 
Sometimes, after shaving, the turban is fresh made, — 
a work of some time. Immediately over his bare 

E 



50 MOORISH AND ARAB HEAD-DRESSES. 

head, the native, whether Moor or Arab, wears one or 
more skull-caps of wool or cotton, and above these the 
ordinary red fez. But the next step differs in the two 
cases. The Arab, when in the country, winds over 
his head a portion of a long scarf of mixed wool and 
silk, or wool and cotton, called a haik. This is often 
twenty-five feet or more in length and about a yard in 
breadth. It is twisted a greater or less number of 
times under the chin and over the head, according 
to the state of the weather, and then secured by a 
cord of camel's hair wound over all. But the Moor, 
after wetting his haik, makes a small coil of it, and 
winds this around the lower half of the fez. In the 
barbers' shops, this operation is performed by the help 
of a block, like the dressing of a wig in Europe, and 
the compound ornament transferred to the head of the 
owner after completion. In wet weather, or at night, 
the Arab untwists the camel's hair cord, superadds to 
his ordinary head-gear the hoods of one or two bour- 
nouses, and then winds it round again ; and he adopts 
the same proceeding when exposed to a violent sun. 
It is scarcely necessary to remark upon the incompati- 
bility of these habits with the custom of uncovering the 
head as a mark of respect. When an Arab or Moor 
wishes to exhibit this, he takes off his shoes. 

It is a curious circumstance that the Algerine Jews 
have no objection whatever to the presence of a Chris- 
tian as a spectator of their ritual, unless he takes off his 



OPPUESSION OF JEWS. 51 

hat. This they extremely dislike. They have several 
synagogues in Algiers, one of which is now being re- 
stored in a handsome and costly manner, I believe at the 
expense of the French government, which is extremely 
popular with them. In fact, the oppression from 
which this unhappy race has been rescued by the con- 
quest of Algeria was most fearful. A forced contribu- 
tion, upon any sudden necessity for money arising, was 
the mildest form of injustice to which they were sub- 
jected. More than once the Deys, to allay sedition among 
their soldiers, granted them free permission to plunder 
the Jews for a certain number of hours. The Moorish 
children used always to beat those of the Jews when 
they saw them in the street, and the least resistance 
would have been punished by death. Probably it is 
the reaction from this miserable condition which has 
made the youthful part of the Jewish population of 
Algiers conspicuous for vulgar insolence. An Euro- 
pean, if not in uniform, who meets a shoal of Jew 
boys, especially on Saturdays, is pretty sure to be made 
the subject of some petty impertinence. 

The ordinary language which the African Jews 
use is Arabic, but almost all can also speak Spanish. 
French is a very rare accomplishment among them, 
except in Algiers. Everywhere else it implies a 
superior education. The Spanish language is pro- 
bably a traditionary acquirement with them from 
the time of their exile from Spain, although the 

E 2 



52 RITUAL OF JEWS. 

many Spanish settlements which existed until recently 
on the northern coast of Africa must have always 
rendered it very useful. Their ritual is, as every- 
where, Hebrew; but the rabbins preach to them 
(at least on some occasions) in Arabic. I attended a 
service in Algiers, and was struck by the circum- 
stance that the air to which the psalms were chanted 
coincided almost exactly with one of the Gregorian 
tones. On this occasion the synagogue was very full. 
Many of the men wore an European costume, but 
covered their shoulders with a silk scarf, worn like 
that of a lady in England. Their prayers were re- 
peated with extreme rapidity, every one tm^ning 
himself to the nearest wall. In Con stan tine I heard 
the chant of the psalms occasionally accompanied 
or interrupted by the shrill cry of Iy4y4y, — the same 
which the Moorish women use at funerals and 
weddings, and which is no doubt the representative 
of the el-el-eu, which Herodotus tells us the Libyan 
women of his time excelled in uttering. I cannot 
say whether it proceeded from the throats of boys or 
women, for I was at some distance from the syna- 
gogue, engaged in copying some inscriptions; but 
I was informed it constituted a regular part of the 
Sabbath service. The chant of the psalms at Con- 
st antine was not Gregorian, as at Algiers, but more 
monotonous and barbaric. The type of the Jewish 
countenance is, at least as regards the women, very 



VARIED TYPE OF FACE. 53 

different as one gets farther East. At Algiers the 
expression is ugly and mean to the last degree ; the 
nose is hooked, and the chin short and receding, and 
this effect is increased by their habit of tying up 
the lower jaw, like that of a corpse, with a handker- 
chief. At Constantine the nose was straighter and 
the chin longer and fuller, and I was astonished 
to find some fair complexions and auburn hair, 
which reminded me of one of Guercino's Esthers. 

On arriving at Tunis, 1 found this the predominant 
type of the female Jewish physiognomy, which acci- 
dent gave me an unusual facility for observing. On 
the 1st of May, it is the practice to decorate the 
synagogues with flowers and wax-candles. A kind 
of shrine, or bower, composed of these is carried in 
procession from some neighbouring house, attended 
by people singing and uttering the cry of ly-ly-ly. 
When it arrives at the synagogue it is hung up ; and as 
several are brought, the whole building becomes one 
blaze of tapers. Every woman who has been married 
during the previous month comes to the synagogue 
of her district, dressed out as handsomely as she can 
compass, and takes her seat upon a bench, where 
she remains till midnight, when a sermon is de- 
livered by the rabbin — I suppose on the duties of 
wedlock. I v/as conducted by a Jew to seven or 
eight of these synagogues, in each of which a col- 
lection is made for the poor of the district, and every 



54 SINGULAR CUSTOM. 

visitor is expected to contribute a small sum. One 
of the brides was a cousin of my cicerone, and at 
the house, in a part of which her " churching " took 
place, his family resided, and I was treated with 
coffee by his mother and sister, a girl of about 
thirteen, who was to be married very shortly. All 
the ladies who showed themselves on this occasion 
were much alike. Their hair varied from black to 
auburn, but their complexions were invariably bright 
and clear. Each as she came sat down u.pon the 
bench, opened a pair of large stupid eyes to their 
fullest extent, stared about her vacantly, and in a 
minute or two drew up her legs, which were encased 
in tight pantaloons of gold brocade, and assumed the 
squatting attitude which alone is compatible with 
comfort in the opinion of a native. No one seemed 
to take any particular notice of any other, except the 
collectors of the contribution, who kept a hawk's eye 
upon all departures; but there was an incessant 
chattering and repetition of some formularies main- 
tained by the crowd present. What the precise 
origin either of this curious festival or of the peculiar 
physiognomy of the Jewesses of Eastern Barbary 
may be, it is not easy to say with confidence. The 
former, being independent of the lunar month, can 
hardly be in its origin Jewish. It perhaps has some 
connexion with the Roman festival of the Floralia, 
and the exhibition of the brides in public may be 



PERHAPS OF PAGAN ORIGIN. 55 

a substitute for the grosser displays to which the 
pagan populations were accustomed, and against 
which some of the African fathers strongly inveigh.* 
There is ample evidence, that after the re-conquest 
of Barbary from the Vandals by Belisarius, a con- 
siderable number remained in the more inaccessible 
parts of the country. In the subsequent times, these 
would naturally spread, and mixture with the natives 
would tend to produce in their descendants the 
physiognomy and complexion which has been re- 
marked. It seems not improbable, therefore, that 
while the time of this curious nocturnal festival and 
its floral character is inherited from Roman colonists, 
the musical part of it descends from the aboriginal 
Africans ; and the aspect of the population which 
celebrates it indicates the influence exercised by the 
great invasion from Spain in the fifth century of the 
Christian era. Pinally, in the substitution of decently- 
dressed wives for the " meretricia turba," and in the 
appropriation of the money collected from visitors to 
the support of the poor, we may recognise the influ- 
ence of the early Christian Church, which, when 
compelled to tolerate the pagan festivals, always 
contrived to give a new interpretation to the old 

* See St. Augustine, Be civitate Dei, iv. 26, and Lactantius (who 
received the instructions of his teacher Am obi us in an African 
city, Sicca Veneria,— probably El Kef, on the road between Bona 
and Tunis, and about sixty miles from the latter). Livin. Inst it. 
i. 20. 



56 



THE AISSAOUA, 



ceremonies, and turn prevailing customs to good 
account.* 

There is a singular fraternity in all the towns of 
the north of Africa, which illustrates in a remarkable 
manner the way in which an organized society lasts 
through many ages, taking up into itself elements 
derived from the most opposite sources. The members 
of it are called Aissaoua, — the guild or company of 
Aissa, which is the Arabic form of the name Jesus. 
The traditionary account of their origin is obviously 
a perversion of the miraculous feeding of the mul- 
titude recorded in Scripture. Their founder (so runs 
the legend) was a marabout, whose preaching attracted 
a large crowd of followers. On one occasion they 
found themselves in the desert without any means of 

* The motives of the early Church in these matters are put in 
the most favourable light by St. Augustine in the following passage, 
which is instructive in many ways. He had been preaching at 
Hippo against their practice of indulging in systematic excess in the 
churches on the festivals of the martyrs ; and he told the people 
(he says), — " Post persecutiones tam multas tamque vehementes, 
cum, facta pace, turbae gentilium in Christianum nomen venire 
cupientes hoc impedirentur, quod dies festos cum idolis suis solerent 
in abundantia epularum et ebrietate consumere, nec facile ab his per- 
niciosissimis et tam vetustissimis voluptatibus se possent abstinere, 
visum fuisse majoribus nostris, ut huic infirmitatis parti interim 
parceretur, diesque festos, post eos quos relinquebant, alios in 
honorem sanctorum Martyrum non simili sacrilegio quamvis simili 
luxu celebrarentur ; jam Christi nomine colligatis et tantae auc- 
toritatis jugo subditis salutaria sobrietatis prsecepta traderentur, 
quibus propter preecipientis honorem ac timorem resistere nou 
valerent ; quocirca jam tempus esse, ut qui non se audent negare 
Christianos, secundum Christi voluntatem vivere incipiant, ut ea, 
qu(B ut essent Christiani, concessa sunt,quum Christiani sunt respuantur.'^ 
— Ep. ad Alypium. Opera, vol. ii. p. 70. 



DESCENDANTS OE THE PSYILLI. 57 

subsistence, and were on the point of abandoning 
him, when he bade them not be disheartened but 
eat whatever they could find. Immediately they fell 
to devouring earth and weeds, the leaves of the 
prickly pear, and the snakes and scorpions which had 
taken refuge among the roots of the last. Prom that 
time forwards the affiUated members of the society 
acquired the power of devouring substances the most 
ill-adapted for food. They are really, I have little 
doubt, the genuine descendants of the Psylli, a tribe 
of serpent-charmers and jugglers, which Herodotus 
was informed had perished in an expedition into the 
Sahara,* but which existed, with the reputation of 
being insect and reptile-proof, in the neighbourhood 
of the Cyrenaica, five hundred years afterwards,! and 
in the time of the Antonines were in repute all over 
Greece for their skill in curing snake-bites. | 

I was witness of the feats of a party of Aissaoua in 
Algiers, where the faith in their magical powers has 
in great part given way to mere w^onder at their 
endurance. But even here they do not exhibit them- 
selves professedly as jugglers, but are sent for as 

* IV. 173. The story of Herodotus shows that the reputed 
expedition into the desert entered into the traditionary reports 
of his day, although the circumstances attending it were related 
differently. It would seem as if in his time the Psylli professed to 
have (like the Lapland conjurors) power over the wind. Their 
object was to quell the scirocco, then, as now, the worst calamity to 
which Barbary is exposed, 

f Strabo, Geograjph. xvii. 1, p. 460, ed. Tauchnitz. 

% Pausanias, ix. 28. 1. 



58 ARE PHOEESSED EXORCISTS, 

exorcists by Moorisli families in which there may be 
a sick person, who is supposed by the superstitious 
inmates of the house to be under the influence of 
malignant spirits. When such an occasion offers, 
the curious are admitted into the coTU-t where the 
magicians assemble, and are expected to make a 
small present in acknowledgment. The proceeding 
which I witnessed commenced by six or seven 
Aissaoua sitting round a charcoal fire, and singing 
a low monotonous chant, accompanying it with 
sounds produced by the palm of the hand and 
knuckles on a musical instrument, exactly resembling 
the ancient tympanum, or tambourine without the 
jangling metallic apparatus. This was continued a 
long time, the chief of the party taking no part in 
the incantation except by throwing occasionally a 
pinch of some substance which caused a shght smoke 
into the chafing-dish. The chant became gradually 
more energetic and quicker, and at last a young man 
laid down his tambourine and got up. He stood 
over the fire, swaying his body about in time to the 
music, assuming every minute more and more the 
appearance of a person possessed, alternately bowing 
his head almost into the chafing-dish and throwing it 
backwards as if without power to restrain himself. 
Presently he became ecstatic, and commenced jumping 
violently, always, however, coming down in the same 
spot close to the fire, and from time to time setting 



BUT EEALLY JUGGLERS. 59 

np a hideous howl. The old chief now advanced to- 
wards him, and seemed to soothe him by gestures 
like those which animal magnetizers are wont to 
employ to tranquillize their patients. He then brought 
him a kind of shovel used by the Arab smiths, of 
which the scoop had been made red hot. The young 
man took this with a howl, intended to evince satis- 
faction, licked it with his tongue, and placed it on his 
naked arms, Avhich were streaming with perspiration 
from the exercise he had taken. He then stalked 
about the apartment, uttering the peculiar growl 
which is emitted by an angry camel. A leaf of the 
prickly pear was thrown to him, which he picked 
up in his mouth from the ground, and ate a portion 
of it. He then resumed his jumping by the side of 
the chafing-dish, and another performer got up and 
exhibited nearly the same feats. 

This was a man almost as black as a negro, but 
with the European features and soft hair. After he 
had, however, exhibited his appetite for red hot iron 
and cactus leaves, he treated the company to a yet 
more disgusting display. Giving a rotatory motion to 
a long piece of iron, exactly hke a spit, he proceeded 
apparently to force out one of his eyes with it. The 
real operation effected was the twisting of the eyelid 
round the point of the rod, by which means the 
former entirely disappeared, and the whole of the eye 
protruded as if it had been torn from its socket. This 



60 



SERPENT EATERS. 



was esteemed a master-stroke, and the chief made a 
special collection for the benefit of the performer. He 
afterwards inserted the same rod into his body at the 
navel and brought the point out just over the hip. 
Both these feats were accompanied by indications of 
great pain, the idea intended to be impressed upon 
the spectators being that the man was compelled thus 
to torture himself by the demon which possessed him. 
I observed him very closely, and saw that the latter 
trick had been effected by means of an artificial fistula 
made in the thick skin of the belly. After drawing 
the iron rod from his body, he returned to the side of 
the chafing-dish, and resumed his jumping, which dis- 
played extraordinary agility, until at last he sunk with 
an appearance of perfect exhaustion upon a bench at 
the side of the room. This performer was the son of 
a man of some property, who was anxious to induce 
him to give up his vagabond life ; but the excitement 
of it was too great an attraction to allow him to 
accede to his father's wishes. 

Some of these A'issaoua, in their fit of possession^ 
eat serpents and scorpions alive; and the old chief 
told us that one of his party would soon come to 
Algiers who was a master of this accomplishment, 
which, like the eye trick, is far from general among 
the body ; but he was not successful in inducing any 
European to pay him another visit. 

In the interior of the country the faith in the 



ARE STILL BELIEVED IN. 61 

magical nature of the proceeding still continues firm. 
At Maskara I passed by tlie door of a hut, where an 
exorcism by some Aissaoua was being carried on inside. 
Mingling with some Arabs that were standing and 
looking in, I saw a performer in the state of ecstatic 
excitement ; but in two or three minutes my Euro- 
pean dress caught his eye, and he suddenly stopped, 
put his hand to his head as if stunned, and staggering 
to a bench fainted, or affected to faint, away. By 
the manner of the Arabs, both within and without 
the cottage, I saw plainly that my presence was felt to 
have broken the spell in which the exorcist had been 
held, and consequently to have marred the success of 
the incantation. The whole proceeding was suspended ; 
and observing the sullen side looks, with one eye half- 
closed — a sure sign of Arab malice — which were 
directed upon me, I judged it prudent to walk slowly 
off, the more so as some of the party were Morocco 
Arabs, the most savage and unscrupulous of all the 
race. On passing near the house about an hour 
afterwards, I was glad to find, by the sounds which 
proceeded from it, that the operation had been re- 
sumed, and I took care not to endanger its success by 
a second intrusion. 



62 



ASCENT OE THK SAHEIj. 



CHAPTER IV. 

From Pointe Pescade a track ascends the hill, by 
which the pedestrian may get up to the plateau on the 
top of the Sahel, and after a few miles of walking, 
reach the village of Bouzarieh ; and he may also do 
the same by ascending just beyond the village of St. 
Eugene; but the extremely broken character of the 
ground and the overgrowth of brushwood renders 
it very easy for him to miss his way, and he must 
remember that the chances are ten to one against his 
meeting with any one to put him right should he do so. 
A pocket-compass and a map, — of which last the best 
to be had are extremely bad, — are an absolute neces- 
sity ; but even with these, and with a habit of finding 
his way about a strange country, the traveller must 
lay his account for a good deal of fatigue and some 
deviation from the nearest path. He will, however, 
be sure to find objects to interest him, although they 
all tell the same tale, — one of former prosperity that 
has vanished. Between St. Eugene and Bouzarieh I 
passed several ruins of old Moorish villas, and in two 



RUINED MOORISH VILLAS. 63 

places came upon portions of the old Roman road, 
which probably conducted from Icosium to the settle- 
ment near Rous-el-Knathar. One of the ruined villas 
was so large that, at a distance, I thought it might be 
still occupied. Its scale corresponded with that of the 
country-house of an English gentleman with a fortune 
of £7,000 or £8,000 a-year. When I reached it, 
however, I found the roof gone, and the glazed tiles 
which had ornamented the interior torn up, except in 
one room most admirably placed for an exquisite 
sea-view, which appeared to have been used as an 
oratory. Very near there was a small wood^ and as 
my course led me round this, I happened to observe 
a narrow path conducting into it, frayed through trees 
which grew so thick as almost to conceal it. I fol- 
lowed it, and presently found myself in an open space 
containing a number of Moorish graves, and just by, 
overgrown with brushwood, a handsome tomb. The 
occupant of this was probably some former owner of 
the ruined mansion, in repute as a marabout. Even 
at the present time some persons remain who pay 
respect to his memory, possibly pauperized members 
of his own family, for ragged strips of clothing were 
hanging about the tomb, and hard by I found con- 
cealed a coarse kind of candlestick with remnants of 
wax sticking to it, which had obviously been em- 
ployed very recently. About half-a-mile off I met a 
Moor who happened to speak Erench, and he told me 



64 BOUZARIEH. 

that there was a burial-place, no longer used, in the 
direction from which I had come. 

Bouzarieh may, however, be reached in a two hours' 
drive from Algiers by two different roads, both of 
which afford a succession of exquisitely beautiful 
views, only to be surpassed by the one which pre- 
sents itself on arriving at the Vigie, or Telegraph 
Station, about half-a-mile from the village itself. From 
this point, which is not less than 1400 or 1500 feet 
above the sea, the spectator may study the country as 
he woidd a map ; while in whatever direction he turns 
^lis eye, he will behold a picture to charm the artist. 
If he looks to the east, he surveys the sweep of the 
sea-coast which forms the bay of Algiers, with Cape 
Matifou, as it appears to the eye, almost within range 
of cannon shot. Beyond this rise gradually the moun- 
tains of Kabylie, and high above the rest the rugged 
ridge of Djerjera (the Mons Ferratus of the ancients), 
with the snow on its peaks shining in the sun. Turn- 
ing round to the south, his view is closed by the blue 
wall of the Atlas, at the foot of which appears a part 
of the rich plain of the Metidja, not cut up by fences, 
but dotted here and there with minute white specks, 
which indicate that an European has been tempted 
by the fertility of the soil to brave the fever which 
rises out of the neighbouring marsh. More common 
than these are patches of dark green, the site of 
Arab orange-groves, or masses of a lighter hue, out 



PENINSULA OE SIDI FERUDJE. 65 

of which spring two or three palm trees. These 
mark the villages of agricultural Arabs, fenced in 
and intersected in every direction by the prickly pear. 
In the south-west direction, the elevated plateau 
upon which the spectator is standing, runs out as 
far as the eye can see in a kind of spur, separating 
the Metidja on its south-east side from another plain 
on the north-west. This latter comprises the whole 
circle of the operations that gave the French pos- 
session of Algiers in 1830. Carrying the eye from 
the Rous-el-Knathar, of which I have already spoken, 
along the line of the coast westwards, one's attention 
is arrested by an elevated promontory about nine 
miles to the west-south-west. A flat neck of land 
connects it with the shore, which on both sides of 
the isthmus is very low, and sweeps into bays 
affording some slight protection from the north-east 
and east winds. For four or five miles from the sea, 
the land rises very gradually. The soil is soft friable 
sandy clay, thickly covered with the ordinary brush- 
wood of North Africa, the lentisque, the oleander, 
and the myrtle, very gently undulating, and here 
and there seamed with ravines, made by the streams 
which take their rise in the plateau on which I 
suppose the spectator to stand. 

On the top of the promontory is a small round tower, 
called by the Spaniards Torre Chica, which gives its 
name to the peninsula in most charts ; but the natives 



66 THE FUENCH INVASION. 

call it after Sidi Ferudje, a marabout of great sanc- 
tity, who lies buried there. When the invasion of 
Algiers was determined upon, it was resolved that the 
debarkation of the army should take place here, the 
beach being favourable for such an operation, and 
the peninsula offering an excellent site for a fortified 
camp, to serve as a base for future operations. On 
the 13th of June, about noon, the vessels of the 
invading force began to arrive, and cast anchor in 
the bay to the west of the cape. They met with 
scarcely any opposition, the Turks having expected 
that a landing would be attempted in the neighbour- 
hood of Cape Matifou, where they had collected 
a considerable force to oppose it. A single battery, 
which was masked by the brushwood, discharged four 
shells upon the invaders, one of which in bursting 
wounded a seaman on board the Breslau man-of-war, 
but no other harm was done. The whole of the day 
was occupied in placing the fleet in proper positions 
for the debarkation of the troops the next morning. 
The French army, amounting on the whole to nearly 
35,000 fighting men, was distributed into three 
divisions, the first commanded by General Berthe- 
zene, the second by General Loverdo, and the third 
by the Duke D'Escars, a young man of gallantry, 
but altogether unversed in war, and forced upon 
M. de Bourmont by the influence of the court. The 
fleet, which consisted of 100 ships of war and 357 



HOW EEEECTED. 67 

transports, besides a considerable number of barges 
and rafts for landing artillery and horses, was under 
the orders of Admiral Duperre, between whom and 
General Bourmont a coldness and jealousy soon made 
itself felt. At break of day on the 14th, the first 
division effected a landing without any resistance, and 
advanced at once against the enemy, who had posted 
themselves on a slight elevation about a mile and 
a half from the shore, and defended their position by 
three batteries. On the advance of the French they 
abandoned these after a very slight resistance, retiring 
behind a shallow ravine a little more inland ; and the 
first division of the invading army bivouacked on the 
ground the enemy had left, with the second, which 
had landed during the advance of the first, close in 
its rear. The third division was also disembarked, 
and at once set to work to convert the peninsula of 
Sidi Ferudje into an entrenched camp, in which 
hospitals and magazines, both of food and ammu- 
nition, were speedily established. 

It is surprising to find how little the French were 
aware of the nature of the country in which they had 
to operate, and also how greatly they had over-esti- 
mated the strength of the enemy with whom they 
were about to contend. M. de Bourmont seems to 
have imagined that he would be surrounded by clouds 
of cavalry like the Mamelukes j and in a general 
order issued about a fortnight before the landing, 

F 2 



68 ARAB CAVALRY. 

endeavoured to forestall the panic which he feared 
naight spring up among the troops from such an appa- 
rition. The soldiers were also provided with a kind 
of movable palisade, formed of lances chained three 
together, which was intended to defend them against 
the attacks of these formidable horsemen. But nothing 
can be more unlike the Mameluke than the spahi of 
North Africa, or the fiat plains of Egypt than the Tel 
(a hill country) of Algeria. The Arab horseman is 
indeed armed with a sabre or yataghan, but he only 
employs it for the purpose of decapitating his wounded 
prisoner. Encumbered with his loose bournouses — 
for he always wears two, and often more — the drawing 
of his weapon is to him a work of considerable time, 
and the sheathing it more difficult still. His real 
arm of offence is a long gun, with which he performs 
the service of a mounted rifleman, galloping up to 
within forty or fifty yards of his enemy, discharging 
his piece, and retreating again as rapidly as he had 
advanced. The rough and broken character of the 
ground on the flanks of the mountains, and the thick 
brushwood covering it, would effectually prevent the 
ordinary manoeuvring of cavalry. 

Although the troops had been landed without 
accident, they carried only flve days' provisions with 
them, and it required some time to disembark a 
sufficient quantity of stores to prevent future anxiety 
on this score. Bourmont had also determined to 



BATTLE OF STAOUELI. 69 

make a road, and establish a chain of redoubts, along 
the line by which his army moved. Eight of these 
redoubts were constructed between Sidi Eerudje and 
Algiers, most of which strike the eye at once at the 
present day. The delay, however, occasioned by 
such a cautious policy gave the Tui'ks time to collect 
a larger force than they had at first at command; 
and on the 19th of June they attacked the Prench 
lines. Bourmont had wished to wait the arrival of 
his siege guns and the horses of his baggage-train 
before advancing at all farther; but the inaction of 
the soldiers so much increased the audacitv of the 
enemy, that after they were repulsed it seemed abso- 
lutely necessary to pursue them, and, changing his 
first plan, the French general ordered an attack. His 
plans were somewhat marred in the execution, but 
nevertheless the victory of the French was complete ; 
all tbe artillery of the enea^y fell into their hands ; 
and in the camp at Staoueh, where the Agha of 
the Turks had his head-quarters, not only were 
the tents of the principal oflficers taken all standing, 
richly fm-nished, but in one a considerable sum in 
money was found, which had been brought to pay 
the troops. In this afi'air, which goes by the name of 
the Battle of Staoueli, the Turks lost nearly 4,000 
men, while the French had no more than 600 put 
hors de combat . In the year 1843, when M. Dupuch 
laid the first stone of the Trappist establishment at 



70 BATTLE OF SIDI KALIF. 

Staoueli, there was placed underneatli it a bed of 
bullets which had been picked up in the immediate 
neighbourhood. 

Bourmont, steadily pursuing his original plan of 
carefully securing his communications, continued the 
road from Sidi Ferudje up to the new position of his 
advanced divisions at Staoueh, and completed the 
entrenchment of his great camp on the peninsula 
itself. The lines drawn across the isthmus were 
armed with twenty-four sea guns, and the redoubts 
built to secure the road with the pieces which had 
been taken from the enemy. These operations were 
just completed when the Turkish commander, having 
collected a fresh force of Arabs, attacked the French 
advanced posts on the 24th. The general, who that 
day had come early to the front from his head- 
quarters at Sidi Ferudje, met the assault by ordering 
his own troops to take the offensive. The enemy did 
not attempt to make a stand, but fled till they 
reached the elevated ground which connects Bouzarieh 
with the hills immediately above Algiers. The French 
call this affair the battle of Sidi Kalif, from a hamlet 
which then occupied nearly the same site that the 
village of Cheragas now does. But few men were 
put liors de combat on their side ; but among them 
was a son of the general's, who received a wound 
from which he died a few days afterwards. At the 
end of the day they occupied the position of Fontaine 



PLATEAU OF FONTAINE CHAPELLE. Jl 

Chapelle, a name given by them to a marabout of 
Sidi Abderrhaman-bou-Nega, in consequence of a 
strong spring of excellent water in the vicinity. This 
marabout, now ruined, stands close by the present 
road from Algiers to Cheragas and Koleah, which 
passes between it and the spring. Immediately 
beyond it, as one goes from Sidi Ferudje towards 
Algiers, is a moist elevated plateau, from which issue 
several streams. Some of them, running to the west- 
ward, fall into the sea between Sidi Perudje and 
Kous-el-Knathar ; while others, taking a south-westerly 
course, descend into the plain of the Metidja, where 
they augment the stream formed by the union of 
two branches of the Harash, which take their rise 
in the Atlas range. The heights occupied by the 
Turks at the close of the 24th lie beyond this 
plateau. Tiiey dominate the position taken up by the 
French, a circumstance which turned to the disad- 
vantage of the latter during the next fom^ days, 
which were occupied in continual skirmishes, while 
the general completed his road to bring up the heavy 
guns with which he intended to attack Algiers. 

On the 29th the army was united at Fontaine 
Chapelle, and moved forward. The third division, 
which had not been engaged, was brought to the 
front to give the Duke d'Escars an opportunity of 
distinguishing himself. At break of day the three 
divisions advanced in close columns across the valley 



72 DISORDERED ADYANCE 

which separated them from the enemy, who took to 
flight without making any important resistance. The 
second division, which was in the centre, had been 
ordered to follow the trace of an ancient Roman road, 
which wound over the mountain Bouzarieh to the 
vicinity of the Fort of the Emperor, keeping the water- 
shed at the head of the many ravines which seam all 
sides of the hill. The third division, stationed on the 
left, after a fatiguing march across several glens, 
where the worst European troops might have stopped 
it, finally arrived on the slopes of Bouzarieh which 
face Algiers. The first division, on the right, had no 
enemy to oppose it, but the difficulties of the ground 
over which it had to move were so great, that bear- 
ing insensibly to its left, it passed in the rear of the 
second, without being aware of the fact^ and at last 
appeared on the slopes of Bouzarieh, behind the 
division of the Duke d'Escars. The fate of the second 
was even worse. Owing to some misapprehension, 
Loverdo made a retrograde movement, and got into a 
ravine, where General Bourmont's aide-de-camp, who 
was despatched to order him to advance, had great 
difficulty in finding him. Finally, the third division 
contrived to entangle itself in the broken ground ; for 
Bourmont, on arriving at the Yigie of Bouzarieh, 
and finding the erratic course which had been pur- 
sued by the first division, determined to retain it, and 
send the third to occupy the ground to the right of 



OF THE FRENCH. 73 

the Roman road, the place which, according to the 
original plan, was to have been taken up by the first. 
The Duke d'Escars, making a short cut for the pur- 
pose of effecting the operation more speedily, got his 
men, too, lost in some of the deepest and most 
difficult ravines. For a time it was utterly dis- 
organised, and troops of all arms were mixed wppele- 
mele with one another. 

If the Turkish general had possessed any ability, it 
is said that two of the three divisions would infallibly 
have been destroyed ; but after the first onset, the 
Turks abandoning their guns, which fell into the hands 
of the French, took refuge beneath the fortifications of 
Algiers. Only the third division suffered any loss, 
except from fatigue ; but the confusion in that and 
the second was for a time very great, and the restora- 
tion of order was the work of several hours. 

After the traveller has satisfied his curiosity with 
the view of the country from the Yigie of Bouzarieh, 
he will do well to visit the Arab village called Petit 
Bouzarieh. This occupies the site of a village of 
Andalusian Moors which was destroyed by the 
French ; and the huts of the present inhabitants are 
composed in great part of the ruins of the former 
houses. It is thickly planted with the prickly pear, 
the hedges of gardens in former days, but now only 
an article of cultivation. The French village of Bou- 
zarieh, which consists of only two or three tenements, 



74 ARAB COMMUNISM. 

one of them an alehouse and cafe, is about ten minutes' 
walk south of the Arab village, and a carriage cannot 
pass between them. The first time I was there I was 
witness of a curious spectacle. Some of the Arabs 
had jointly purchased an ox in Algiers, for the pur- 
pose of slaughtering it, and dividing the flesh. Their 
practice is to throw the animal on the ground by 
hampering its legs with a rope, after which they cut 
its throat with a yataghan. This operation had just 
been performed— as always, in the open air— on a 
green in front of the little inn of the French village, 
and there were lying on the ground twenty-four little 
heaps of meat, and a twenty-fifth, which consisted of 
the head and feet of the animal. What had become 
of the fifth quarter and the hide, I could not learn, 
but no doubt they were made use of in some way. 
To distribute these portions among the purchasers, a 
number of bits of twisted straw and sticks, duly 
marked, were put into a basket and shaken. An 
Arab then took them out one by one, and as he did 
so called out the name of the owner, who thereupon 
appropriated the next heap of flesh to himself. An 
old man, whom I took for the kadi, stood by looking 
on, perhaps to see that the proceeding was conducted 
fairly. 

The slopes of Mount Bouzarieh, towards the west 
and south, are held by this tribe. They cultivate a 
portion of the soil on something like communistic 



VALLEY OF THE CONSULS. 75 

principles, dividing it among themselves according to 
the strength of each family, and feeding the unculti- 
vated part in commonage. When the head of a 
family dies, his property is divided among his chil- 
dren according to the Mahometan law, which is ex- 
pounded by the kadi. No Algerian Arab can alienate 
the piece of land he cultivates to a non-tribesman, if 
the members of the tribe choose to purchase it. It is 
not often that the desire can arise, for the position of 
the holder of a property acquired under such circum- 
stances, surrounded by native neighbours, would be 
something worse than that of a snake in a porcupine's 
hole. 

Towards the north, the slopes of Bouzarieh are 
chiefly inhabited by Spaniards and Mahonnais, who 
cultivate the remains of the gardens which had been 
formed by the Moors in that region, wherever the 
arrangements for irrigation have escaped destruction. 
The great demand for fruit and vegetables in Algiers 
is enriching them, for they are a singularly frugal and 
industrious people. 

From the French village of Bouzarieh, a road 
descends through what is called the Valley of the 
Consuls, it having been a favourite locality for foreign 
residents before the conquest. The gradients are 
easy, and the many windings which the steepness of 
the hills towards the sea has necessitated, open a 
succession of the most charming views, something like 



76 EL BIAE. 

those one enjoys in skirting the gulf of Spezzia. But 
the softness of the soil has here, as almost everywhere 
in Algeria, been fatal to the preservation of the route, 
which is so injured by the rains that a humane man 
will be tempted to get out of his carriage in going up 
hill, and a prudent one in going down, at a dozen 
different places. It descends on the shore, at a little 
distance outside the fortifications on the north side of 
the town, close by the military hospital which has 
been already mentioned. The other road runs south- 
ward for four or five miles, till it strikes the highway 
from Algiers to Cheragas, Staoueli, and Koleah, which 
is one of the very best in the whole country. 

Returning from Bouzarieh to Algiers by this route, 
the traveller will nearly follow the course of the 
French army, when, after the action of the 29th of 
June, they proceeded to invest the Port of the 
Emperor. Very soon after reaching the highway, he 
will pass through El Biar, a collection of houses not 
altogether unlike an English village. There are seve- 
ral villas in the immediate neighbourhood, and it is 
a favourite resort of the Algerine aristocracy. A mile 
further, and the Fort of the Emperor is seen on the 
right hand, — the key of Algiers, which lies at its feet, 
and could be destroyed from it with perfect ease. It 
is now a strong fortification, but at the time of the 
invasion was merely an oblong square, with a large 
round tower in the middle, and a double wall on the 



ATTACK OF THE FORT OF THE EMPEROR. 77 

south side, altogether devoid of outworks, although 
dominated by higher hills in the immediate neighbour- 
hood. On two of these, opposite to the south and 
the west sides of the fort, the Prench constructed 
their batteries of attack. The trenches were com- 
menced on the 30th of June, and on the 4th of 
July, at four o'clock in the morning, fire was opened 
simultaneously on the south side from a battery of six 
guns, and on the west from ten guns, two howitzers, 
and four mortars. At eight o'clock the Turkish fire, 
which at first had been very vigorous, began to 
slacken ; at ten it was silenced, the guns of the 
fort nearly all dismounted, and the parapets entirely 
destroyed. General Lahitte, who conducted the siege, 
now gave the order to lay the guns for making a 
breach, when suddenly a terrible explosion was heard, 
and a thick cloud of smoke enveloped the fort. The 
Turks, unable to resist the attack of the invaders, had 
retired to the Kazbah after laying a train to the 
magazine of the Fort. As soon as this w^as ascer- 
tained, the French scaled the walls ; and by means 
of only two field-pieces, assisted by the fire of three 
Turkish guns that remained uninjured, speedily 
silenced Fort Bab-Azoun, from which, as well as from 
the Kazbah, a fire had been kept up on them 
during the attack on the Fort of the Emperor. 
They then established themselves on a mamelon — the 
site of the Fort of tlie Tagarins — situated less than 



78 SURRENDER OE ALGIERS. 

200 yards from the Kazbah, and were proceeding to 
form communications between this and the Fort of 
the Emperor, when the Dey sent his chief secretary, 
Mustapha, to the French general, with an offer to pay 
the expenses of the expedition, and to satisfy the 
whole of the French demands upon him as the price 
of peace. Bourmont replied that the surrender of 
Algiers was a necessary preliminary of any negotia- 
tion, and the secretary returned, after making the 
extraordinary proposition to the French general to 
assassinate the Dey and set up the Finance Minister 
(a patron of his own) in his place. From the new 
sovereign, he asserted, the French would obtain a 
better bargain than the existing one had proposed. 

It was now eleven o'clock at night; the terrified 
people, fearing that the town would be taken by 
storm and plundered, tumultuously demanded a 
capitulation; and at half-past one in the morning, 
two new messengers arrived, one of whom was a 
Moor that had long resided in Marseilles. They 
were presently followed by the chief secretary, this 
time accompanied by the English Consul. A capitu- 
lation was drawn up, and accepted by the Dey ; and 
by noon the next day, — only three weeks after the 
landing at Sidi Ferudje, — the French army occupied 
the citadel and town of Algiers, which they have ever 
since retained. 



MOORISH CEMETERIES DESTROYED. 



79 



CHAPTER V. 



The beautifully-traced road by which the traveller 
descends froui the Port of the Emperor to the Faiix- 
bourg Bab-Azouu (the southern extremity of Algiers), 
was constructed by the army under the Duke de 
Rovigo (General Savary) during his short admini- 
stration of the province in 1832. In its formation, 
as well as in that of the esplanade outside the Bab-el- 
Oued, it was necessary to destroy a Moorish cemetery ; 
and this proceeding, which under any circumstances 
would have shocked Mahometan feelings, was con- 
ducted with such disregard of all decency, that even 
the Erench civilians were scandalized. No provision 
was made for the re-interment of the partially decom- 
posed remains ; and when the engineer's line passed, 
as was often the case, through the middle of a grave, 
one half of the skeleton was left exposed to view in 
the bank, while the other part was carted away witli 
the earth that had to be removed, to form an embank- 
ment a little further off. 



80 ROAD MAKING OF THE FRENCH 

Another branch of the road descends upon the 
esplanade just mentioned, and is no less admirable as 
a work of engineering. It was finished by General 
Voirol, the great road-maker among the governors of 
Algeria, in the year 1834 ; and then, for the first time, 
it became possible to make the circuit of Algiers in a 
wheeled carriage. The descent in both these branches 
is at the uniform pitch of one in twenty, and great 
pains have been taken to provide means for carrying 
off the water which falls in the rainy season. 
General Voirol extended this road southwards for 
nearly fifteen miles beyond the point where its two 
branches meet, through the villages of Dely Ibrahim 
and Douera, to the very verge of the plain of the Me- 
tidja, at an Arab settlement called Ouled-Mendil. It 
was subsequently prolonged as far as Blidah, on the 
other side of the plain ; and the part constructed by 
Voirol is undoubtedly the best, as well as the most 
important, of all the Algerian routes. 

Another road, no less admh-ably traced, but in worse 
condition, quits Algiers by the Bab-Azoun, and winds 
up the Sahel through the village of Mustapha, a 
charming situation, where some of the principal 
French functionaries have country houses, which are 
for the most part old Moorish villas. Mustapha is 
only about a mile and a half from Algiers. The plain 
which lies beneath, between the hill and the sea, is 
partly occupied by some cavalry barracks, in which 



ACROSS THE SAHEL. 81 

are quartered the 1st Regiment of the Chasseurs 
d'Afrique. Their colonel, the Vicomte de Salignac- 
Fenelon, whose courtesy and high cultivation are not 
inferior to his acknowledged abiUties as an officer and 
administrator, occupies one of the country houses on 
the hill above, in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
palace of Marshal Eandon, the Governor- General of 
Algeria, who is his father-in-law. Beyond the cavalry 
barracks is an extensive common, on which the reviews 
of the troops stationed in Algiers take place. Skirting 
this, another road likewise constructed by General 
Voirol, runs along the foot of the hills, and in about 
six miles reaches the Maison Carree, just after crossing 
the river Harash on a stone bridge of some centuries 
old. 

Following the course of the route through Musta- 
pha^ the visitor, after passing the culminating point 
(on which a column is placed, commemorating the 
names of General Voirol and of five regiments of the 
African army, by whom the operation of making 
the road was executed), begins to descend through an 
undulating country, seamed with ravines, of which 
the sides are richly wooded and the bottoms fertile, to 
a pretty village called Birmandreis. It only consists 
of two or three houses, one of which is a cafe, — the 
first essential of French existence ; but the plentiful 
supply of water, and the luxuriant foliage of the trees 
with which it is surrounded, invest it with the highest 

G 



82 BIRKADEM. 

beauty in the eye of an African. It has, however, a 
bad reputation for unhealthiness, being surrounded by 
hills which prevent a free circulation of air. About 
two miles further is a larger village — Birkadem (Well 
of the Negro), so called from a fountain, ornamented 
with a marble fagade, by the side of the road. The 
village is built in a hollow, below a mamelon on w^hich, 
in the early part of the French occupation, a fortified 
camp was estabhshed. From another hill, little more 
than a mile off the village on the south-east side, a 
good view of the lower portion of the Metidja, and 
of the Atlas behind it, may be obtained. 

There are communal schools here both for boys and 
girls, but very scantily attended. The mistress of the 
latter complained that there were some absences from 
fever, which much surprised me at that time of the 
year (the middle of January), and the master did not 
assign any such reason for the small number of his 
scholars. All the settlers in Birkadem are engaged in 
agriculture, with the exception of one who was em- 
ployed in the preparation of crin vegetal, the stringy 
fibres of the leaves of the dwarf palm, which is used 
instead of wool for stuffing mattresses. Among the 
children in the school I found two or three Mahonnais 
and Germans, the latter of which could understand 
their native language, but had become unable to speak 
it. The schoolmaster told me there was also a Moorish 
school kept up by the Government, which was well 



ROADS ACROSS THE METIDJA. 83 

attended. I asked if care was taken to teach the 
scholars French, and he rephed that they rarely learnt 
more than the few words which would be useful to 
them in intercom-se with the officials. 

Beyond Birkadem the road approaches the Metidja 
more apparently, and in about thi^ee miles reaches it 
by descending rather suddenly on the Oued-el-Kerma, 
which is there crossed by a stone bridge. I estimated 
this point to be very httle more than thhty feet above 
the level of the sea. Here the work of General Voirol 
terminated ; but the road is now continued, in a west- 
south-west direction, along the skirts of the plain, till it 
cuts the prolongation of the Dely Ibrahim and Douera 
road, about a mile to the south of Ouled Mendil, at a 
place called Les guafre cliemins. There is a posting 
station here, and one or two inns to supply the wants 
of travellers ; but nothing can exceed the melancholy 
appearance of the place. Immediately to the south of 
it is a fen, through which, at the expense of great 
labour, the road to Blidah is carried ; and this — which 
is the chief, and indeed only direct military commu- 
nication between the seat of government and the most 
important post in the central province—is so rotten, 
and lies so low, that in the whole of England it would 
not be easy to find a farming road which would not, 
taking the vrhole year round, prove a more secure 
route. At its lowest point, which is about three or 
four miles before reaching Bouffarik, it is probably 

o2 



84 WANT OF STONE. 

not more than half a dozen feet above the sea 
level. A very slight fall of rain destroys the 
consistency of the surface, and any considerable 
quantity would interrupt the traffic altogether. 
One day, while I was at Algiers, the Bhdah dih- 
gence (which is by no means badly horsed) stuck fast 
in this Slough of Despond, and even the passengers 
in the coupe, who on these occasions are generally 
considered a privileged class, were forced to get out 
and V7alk, — when they found the mud up to mid^ 
thigh. 

The connexion of Algiers and Blidah is the most 
pressing of the problems which the so much desired 
railroads are required to solve ; and the difficulty of 
solution is enormous. There is not enough stone in 
the province of Algiers to metal the common roads, 
much less to furnish ballast for railway embankments 
such as would be requisite. These, constructed of the 
soft earth of the Sahel, would not resist even the rains 
of England, and would be washed away in a year by 
the almost tropical storms of North Africa. 

If, instead of mounting the hill by the road through 
Mustapha, the traveller pursues the route along the 
low lands, he will soon arrive at the great botanical 
garden of Algeria, or (as it is called) the Jardin 
d'Essai. It, or rather two cafes immediately opposite 
to it, is a favourite resort of the middle classes of 
Algiers, both Erench and native. One of the cafes is 



BOTA^'ICAL GARDEN. 85 

a Moorisli one ; and it is worth while to step up to it 
while waiting for one of the many citadmes which ply 
between " Le Ruissean" — about a mile further than 
the Jardin d'Essai — and Algiers. In fine weather 
several Moors are generally to be seen sitting outside 
the cafe, under the shade of some plane trees, occupied 
in playing draughts. The laws of the game slightly 
differ from the European, and the squares, instead of 
being black and white, are depressed and elevated, — 
which is, perhaps, the original form of the board, and 
imitated in later times by the difference of colour. 

The public are freely admitted to the main walks of 
the Jardin d'Essai, but, in order to visit the conserva- 
tories and the parts of the garden in which experiments 
of acclimatization are being carried on, it is necessary 
to apply to the curator for a written order. This, how- 
ever, there is no difficulty in obtaining ; and the .visitor 
will be well repaid for his trouble. There are some 
beautiful Norfolk Island pines growing in the open air. 
One tree particularly struck me — i\LQAraucaria excelsa. 
It was at least forty feet high, and shooting out with the 
vigour of a native slmib. Here may be seen a collec- 
tion of aU the different varieties of that cactus to which 
the prickly pear and the cochineal plant belong. The 
latter is very Hke the prickly pear, and its leaves of 
the same shape, but smaller. The plantain is being 
fast naturalized. Its fruit comes to the Algiers mar- 
ket, but it is not yet produced cheap enough to be 



86 CULTIVATION OF SUGAR. 

anything but a luxury. The sugar-cane may also be 
seen. It is a favourite idea of enthusiastic Algerians 
to establish sugar plantations in Biskra and the neigh- 
bouring oases, and cultivate them by means of negroes 
redeemed from the warlike tribes fm^ther south. This 
proceeding is strenuously advocated in the newspapers 
of Algiers on motives of humanity, as being an ad- 
mirable device for preventing the murder of prisoners 
of war ; and the astounding ignorance of the princi- 
ples of political economy which prevails in Algeria 
allows one to indulge the charitable hope that the 
writers of the articles may be in earnest. 

But of all the contents of the Jardin d'Essai the 
most pleasing to the ordinary visitor is an avenue 
composed of date palms and dwarf palms alternately. 
It presents the appearance of a beautiful colonnade of 
about 450 yards long. I was struck with the ample 
clusters of dates hanging from the trees. Large yellow 
stalks rise up among the leaves all round, and bending 
over divide into a profusion of bunches. The fruit, 
however, does not ripen satisfactorily north of the 
Atlas, and the dates with which the market of Algiers 
is supplied all come from Biskra. Almost all the 
camels which one sees have been employed in bring- 
ing them. 

After proceeding as far as " Le Ruisseau," a point 
on the road where a brook coming from the hills is 
employed in turning a mill, the road takes a more 



LINE or MILITARY CAMPS. 87 

southerly direction, and begins to ascend the Sahel 
by graduated terraces, like those of the Birkadem and 
the Dely Ibrahim routes, until it reaches Kouba, a 
village between six and seven miles from Algiers. 
Here, again, an excellent view of the town and har- 
bour is obtained. In the early part of the French 
occupation, the safety of the immediate neighbour- 
hood was secured by a line of fortified camps, at 
Kouba, Birkadem, Dely Ibrahim, and Tixerain, a place 
between the two last named. The routes already 
described connected Algiers directly with the first 
three, and their communication with one another was 
effected by a cross road of a less elaborate construc- 
tion. This still exists between Kouba and Birkadem ; 
but Tixerain is now left in the rear of a more ex- 
tended line, which goes as far south as Saoula, 
and then, turning to the north-west, passes through 
Drahria to Dely Ibrahim. It is quite practicable for 
wheeled carriages until near Drahria, when its con- 
dition becomes as bad as that of one of the fen tracks 
in Cambridgeshire. This probably arises from the 
circumstance of a fortified camp (which subsequently 
became a village) having been established still further 
to the south, at Douera. The maintenance of the 
roads within the new line of communication becoming 
unnecessary, money was no longer spent in keeping 
them up ; and in Algeria no route survives neglect 
for any length of time. 



88 CLERICAL ESTABLISHMENTS. 

The village of Saoula is almost exclusively inha- 
bited by Spaniards, whose constitutions offer greater 
resistance than those of the French to the fevers which 
still prevail and which at first decimated the settlers. 
The population of Drahria is also mainly Spanish, but 
there are some few French among them, one of whom 
keeps a cafe, although he himself is a farmer. The 
day I visited the village the whole population, my 
host included, were at work in the fields, with the 
exception of one man who took my horse. The wife 
of the cafe-keeper seemed a very intelhgent and active 
woman. She had come to Africa as I'ady's-maid to 
an officer's wife, and had married a fellow-servant. 
Her husband had been offered some land as a conces- 
sion, but preferred to rent what he held, which was 
ready cleared and in a healthy situation. She seemed 
perfectly contented, and was loud in her praises of 
the fertility of the soil, which produces not only 
cereals and garden-stuff, but very fair wine. The 
village was originally surrounded with a loop-holed 
wall, but the security of the last ten years has caused 
this to disappear, leaving only the town gates still 
standing to testify to its former necessity. 

On the site of the camp at Kouba a large church 
of a very imposing character is in course of erection. 
It stands on elevated ground, and is built with a 
cupola. Fortunately, in the immediate neighbourhood 
is a quarry of stone well adapted for architectural 



TAILUHE or AGRICULTURAL COLONY. 89 

purposes. This church is to form a part of the great 
diocesan seminary for the clergy, and is connected 
with a missionary college of the Peres Lazaristes and 
a school conducted by the sisters of the religious 
order of St. Vincent de Paul. The whole of these 
establishments are at present in a provisional state, 
the buildings intended for their reception being yet 
far from completion. 

About a mile from the camp an agricultural village 
was established by the Duke de Rovigo, and a few 
houses still remain ; but the attempt entirely failed, 
after it had given rise to steps which were highly pre- 
judicial to the relations between the Prench and the 
natives. The panic produced in Algiers by the inva- 
sion, and still more by the arbitrary measures which 
followed it, not only caused many of the Moorish 
inhabitants of the town to emigrate, but induced 
several of the agricultural Arabs of the vicinity to 
abandon their lands. It happened just at this time 
that 500 or 600 Germans and Swiss, who had come 
to Havre with the design of crossing to America, sud- 
denly changed their minds and proceeded to Algiers, 
where they arrived for the most part in a state of 
destitution. The Duke thought this an excellent 
opportunity for attempting the establishment of an 
agricultural colony, and made choice of Dely Ibrahim 
and Kouba for the experiment. At Kouba there was 
a farm belonging to a sequestrated mosque, and at 



90 DISGRACEFUL CONDUCT OF LAND JOBBERS. 

Dely Ibrahim some lands which had been held by the 
now suppressed janissaries. Taking these properties 
as the foundation of his scheme, he increased them by 
seizing the abandoned lands in the neighbourhood ; 
leaving it at the same time free to the owners of these 
to establish their claims and obtain some compensa- 
tion. The consequences of this rash step showed 
themselves immediately. The natives, despairing of 
any substantial justice, sold their rights for the merest 
trifle to Europeans, who made use of their purchase 
solely for the purpose of compelling the Government 
to buy off their opposition to its measures. Even 
some officials took advantage of the opportunity for 
enriching themselves afforded by a measure which 
issued in the irritation of the natives, the corruption 
of their masters, and the destruction of the poor colo- 
nists. Twenty per cent, of these perished from want 
and misery before their location was effected, in spite 
of the aid of the state, which was extended to them 
to the amount of more then £8,000. The Duke was 
so annoyed at the ill success of his experiment that 
he had an official notice published, prohibiting any 
colonist from landing in Algiers if not in possession 
of sufficient funds to maintain himself for a twelve- 
month. " Unhappily," says a contemporary witness 
of what followed, " there was still free access to the 
colony for land-jobbers and lawyers, money-lenders 
and prostitutes ! " 



EORD OF THE HARASH. 91 

From Kouba the road begins to descend towards 
the Metidja through an undulating country, which in 
parts reminds one of the skirts of a Hampshire moor, 
— with dwarf palms, camel-thorn, prickly broom, 
asphodel, and a liliaceous plant with a very broad leaf, 
where in England we should find brambles, gorse, 
and rushes. Three or four miles bring us to the ford 
of the Harash, which is there about as broad as the 
Cam at Chesterton. Its depth varies with the quan- 
tity of rain that may have recently fallen. I crossed 
it on two occasions, and the first time the depth was 
less than three feet, the second full four. In August 
or September it would probably not cover the ankles, 
while in the winter before last its stream became suf- 
ficiently swelled to sweep away the cottages of some 
brick-makers, who are established on a little island 
formed by a secondary channel of the stream. One 
of these was an Italian Swiss, and another a Spaniard. 
They told me they could not make bricks for less than 
thirty francs the 1,000, although the earth beneath 
their feet furnished the clay for nothing. Tiles about 
ten inches square cost fifty francs the 1,000. The 
chief expense is that of fuel for heating the kiln, which 
consists entirely of the brushwood which grows over 
the country, especially the roots of the dwarf palm. 
These burn very slowly unless mixed with some other 
kind of wood, and the Arabs avail themselves of this 
peculiarity to husband their fuel. If they wish to 



92 



SCARCITY OF FUEL. 



have a cup of coffee, the water and the powdered (or 
rather crushed) grains are put together into a small 
tin pot, just big enough for the purpose. In a 
corner of the gourhi (Arab hut) you see a small heap 
of ashes with a mass in the middle which gives no 
sign of being alight ; but upon this the tin pot is 
stuck and surrounded with ashes, and the point of 
the long nozzle of a pair of bellows being introduced 
underneath, just so much ignition as will suffice to 
boil the liquid, and no more, is quickly produced; 
the coffee is then poured into a small china cup in 
which a single lump of white sugar has been placed, 
and the fire immediately damped up with the ashes 
which lie around it. In forging small iron work, such 
as spurs, bits, and horse-shoes, equal thrift is dis- 
played. 

On the steppes south of the first range of the 
Atlas there are no trees of any kind, and the tribes 
which, for a part of the year, overspread these regions 
have no fuel but the dung of their own animals and 
the stalks of the wild artichoke, with here and there 
the addition of the branches of the cam el- thorn. In 
the plains, and on the hill-tops, where the wet does 
not run off and where the soil is not (as on the 
steppes) limestone or salt sand, another plant is very 
common, of which the stalks are sometimes used as 
fuel, although the purpose for which they are chiefly 
employed is to form the sides of the gourhi. The 



ROVIGO AND L'ARBA. 93 

French call it Voignon sauvage, and it covers the 
place where it grows with a handsome plume-like 
green foliage, out of which the flower rises on a stem 
of six feet or more in height, and in its thickest part 
of two inches in diameter. This, before it falls, ac- 
quires the consistency of cane ; and its pith has the 
property of amadou. 

From the ford of the Harash just described, which 
is called the Gue de Con stan tine, the French have 
cut a perfectly straight road across the Metidja to 
Rovigo, a village which lies under the Atlas, near 
the gorge where the river issues from the mountains. 
This road runs south, with a very slight variation to 
the west, and passes for its whole length over a part 
of the plain which is slightly elevated above the 
depressions which exist both to the east and west 
of its course. In the year 1839, a military camp 
was formed here, and another at L'Arba, which is 
likewise at the foot of the Atlas, about six miles to 
the east. The year after the termination of the war 
with Abd-el-Kader (184S), a French village was 
built a little to the north of the camp at Arba ; and 
another road has been recently made, nearly parallel 
to the one just mentioned, connecting by almost as 
straight a course Arba with the Maison Carree. Both 
Arba and Rovigo lie within the oidhan, or circle, of 
Beni Moussa, the most fertile portion of the province 
of Algiers. The traveller, going from the former to 



94 ORANGE GROVES. 

the latter, and continuing his journey to Blidah, would 
pass through the chief orange growing country of 
Algeria. The groves chiefly belong to the natives, 
who are growing gradually rich by the increasing 
demand for their produce, which is exported in great 
quantities from Algiers, both to the eastern province 
of Constantine and to France itself. The price of 
the fruit has risen considerably of late. A few years 
back, a franc would purchase 100 of the finest 
oranges in the market at Algiers, which now fetch 
four or five times that sum. They are much cheaper, 
however, at the place of production; and I suspect 
their dearness in Algiers arises from the astuteness of 
the Maltese traders, who have contrived to get into 
their own hands the greater part of the supply of the 
markets. I was engaged in taking some bearings 
from a point in the Atlas two or three miles from 
L'Arba, on the road to Aumale, when a Kabyle passed 
driving some mules. He seemed interested in my 
occupation, and after some conversation carried on by 
signs, asked me if I would buy some oranges. I held 
up a single sou, and he immediately put two enor- 
mous oranges into my hands, and seemed as if he 
would have increased the number had I demurred to 
the bargain. As he had bought the fruit to sell 
again, and was obviously more than content with his 
profits, it is clear that he could have paid very little 
for his stock. The flavour of my purchase was quite 



CULTIVATION OF THE METIDJA. 95 

equal to its appearance. In England we have no idea 
of a ripe orange ; for when this state is completely 
attained, the fruit must be eaten speedily. When 
you peel it, the tliick rind — for thin rinds belong only 
to imperfectly developed oranges — sends out a cloud 
of spirit as it cracks, and separates itself from its 
contents with the very least effort ; the white string 
in the middle of the fruit comes out whole, and the 
segments all but fall apart from one another. The 
sweetness is such that no quantity of sugar could 
increase it, yet its acidity at once removes the sensa- 
tion of thirst. When Apicius came to England to 
eat the Milton oysters, he ought to have returned by 
Africa for his dessert. 

Along the sides of the road from the Gue de Con- 
stantine to Rovigo, and of that from the Maison 
Carree to L'Arba, a good deal of cultivation is seen, 
and, in the latter case, of not a bad quality. The soil 
of the Metidja, wherever the water does not lie, is 
exceedingly fertile ; and the Government, by carrying 
deep drains along the sides of the roads, and in some 
instances by cutting catch- water ditches in other 
parts, have done a good deal for the promotion of 
agriculture. If a semicircle be drawn from L'Arba 
as a centre with a radius of about four miles, the 
range of Atlas forming the chord, there is within this 
area apparently uninterrupted culture, with the solitary 
exception of a wood of wild olive trees not far from 



96 



AGRICULTURAL RETURNS. 



the town.* In other parts of the route one sees cul- 
tivation here and there, and European farm-houses, 
showing that it is not due to the native population. 
Bat these patches are interrupted with marsh and 
brushwood, in the midst of which the herds of the 
Arabs pasture. Between the Maison Carree and 
L'Arba, I passed two liaouclies (farms), of sedentary 
Arabs, and one douar, or encampment, of pure 
nomads, — the first I had ever seen. Their tents 
are of a dark brown colour, and are made of a 
mixture of camel's hair, goat's hair, and the fibres of 
the dwarf palm woven together. It was only a small 
douar, but the novelty of the sight and the pic- 
turesque appearance of a few camels browsing in the 
neighbourhood made it very interesting. 

The town of L'Arba itself is chiefly inhabited by 
Spaniards, who are tenants of Prench proprietors. 
The persons who obtain gratuitous concessions of 
land rarely remain upon them. In the course of my 
ramble on the flanks of the Atlas I came upon a 
cantonnier, whose case will serve as a very fair 
specimen of the small African landholders. He had 

* In 1857 the breadth of land sov/n with cereals (including peas) 
was, according to the official returns, 6,495 hectares, equivalent to 
16,044 acres, in the whole of the Metidja and the neighbourhood of 
Algiers. The produce was 95,772 hectolitres, or 33,022 quarters. Of 
this quantity L'Arba contributed 30,774 hectolitres (or 10,612 qrs.) 
from 1822 hectares (4,502 acres). The average of the whole gives 
about sixteen bushels and a half to an acre ; that of the neighbour- 
hood of L'Arba, 18f . 



FEVER PREVALENT AT L'ARBA. 97 

served in the army, and on quitting it received an 
assignment of about ten acres of land, together with a 
building which had been used as a blockhouse. The 
land he made over to a Spaniard for three years, as 
the price of clearing it ; " for you conceive, Monsieur," 
said he, " that I am so occupied here, that I have no 
time to do that sort of thing myself." I had found 
him smoking his pipe on the ground about a mile up 
the hills on the Aumale road. Two enormous ruts a 
foot deep gaped hard by, and the tool which he had 
brought ostensibly for the performance of his duties 
was the common mattock, which is used for getting 
up the stumps of the brushwood. This was stuck by 
his side in the grass, and no doubt had been so ever 
since his arrival on the scene of his labours. On my 
return by the same spot an hour later, I found every- 
thing in statu quo, except that my friend was not 
smoking, but lying asleep on his back. This man had 
been at L'Arba for eight years, and had had fever every 
summer. In the town itself I had some conversation 
with a French woman, who gave an even worse 
account of the place. She had been there, she said, 
for three years and six months, and had never been 
well, from fever in the summer, and colds in the 
winter. In the Eovigo diligence I found myself to be 
the only one of six passengers who had not had the 
fever." Several had suffered from it more than once, 
but the first time is said to be the worst. The hos- 

H 



98 CAUSES OF UNHEALTHY VILLAGES. 

pital doctors at Algiers have remarked the very general 
prevalence of distended spleens among the patients, 
which they connect vrith this scourge, — no doubt the 
most formidable enemy the conquerors have had to 
contend with. But although the statistics of disease 
are very discouraging, I saw enough during my stay 
in the country to convince me that the climate was 
not wholly, if indeed chiefly, in fault. The entire 
neglect of even the commonest arrangements for clean- 
liness in the new villages would drive Mr. Chadwick 
frantic. In this respect Algeria under an absolute 
monarchy exactly resembles democratized Corcyra. 
The position too of the settlements has been in almost 
all cases originally determined by military considera- 
tions. The genera] type is a mamelon surrounded by 
a loop-holed wall, which, in the event of a revolt on 
the part of the natives, would be useful in carrying out 
strategic operations. A plentiful supply of water, an 
aspect which should secure the cool breeze from the 
sea, and be protected from the destructive scirocco, an 
adequate distance from pestilential marshes, are all 
points of vital importance to a settler ; but they have 
rarely been regarded, and possibly could not have been 
regarded, in the selection of the places amies, which 
the return of peace converted into " centres of popu- 
lation." The apparent economy of utilizing buildings 
which already existed outweighed, as was natural, the 
apprehensio]! of distant and contingent evils, especially 



A FATAL INVENTION. 99 

in the times when the expenditure of the government 
on its African colony suppHed a formidable weapon to 
the opposition in the French chambers. The miser- 
able condition of the greater part of the colonists who 
arrive in Africa, and in many instances their vicious 
habits, ought likewise to be reckoned for much. In 
an evil hour for the colony, it struck a French specu- 
lator that a spirit might be distilled from the root of 
the asphodel, a plant with which the wet portions of 
the country are thickly covered. He succeeded in his 
attempt ; a vile poisonous liquor, dignified by the 
name of absinthe d'Afrique, was produced at a cheap 
rate, and acquired general popularity. The discoverer 
made a fortune, and his invention has slain more 
Europeans than the sword of Abd-el-Kader, and even, 
according to high medical authority, than the malaria 
of the Metidja. The most painful part of the whole 
aflPair is, that the poor Arabs are gradually perishing 
under this insidious enemy's influence. A bigoted 
adherence to the letter of their law has not saved them 
from the proneness to be influenced by any casuistry 
which flatters their passions ; and many of them wel- 
come the new invention, " which is not forbidden in 
the Koran," as heartily as some disciples of Father 
Mathew did the discovery of " a temperance lozenge." 

All the landholders of Algeria do not, however, 
belong to the class of concessionaires. The lawyers 
who have accumulated fortunes by practising in the 

H 2 



100 LANDLORDS AND TENANTS. 

courts, and the capitalists who have lent money on 
mortgage, succeed very often to the farm of the 
colonist soon after it has been brought into tolerable 
order; and, indeed, whenever European skill is seen 
applied in any great degree to the culture of the land, 
the latter generally turns out to belong to some one 
who is not a professional agriculturist. Two " model 
farms" in different parts of the Metidja, are the 
creation of a gentleman who has a high reputation as 
an advocate in Algiers, and who yet (as I was told) 
finds time, with the aid of bailiffs, to manage both 
of them himself. In general, however, the non-resi- 
dent proprietor lets his farms on the partiarian system, 
providing his tenant with seed-corn and agricultural 
implements, and receiving as rent a certain portion ofi 
the produce, most commonly in kind. This tenure 
has, indeed, been introduced even into the relations 
between the natives and their conquerors in some 
parts of the colony. In the province of Constantine, 
between Phihppeville and the capital, I saw a large 
breadth of land sown with corn, obviously cultivated 
by Arabs, and I was informed that it belonged to the 
concessionaires of a village several miles off. At Setif, 
too, where as much as 50,000 acres of land were 
conceded to a Swiss company, in the view of intro- 
ducing the Alpine dairy-farming into the country, the 
colonists, after a very short time, confined themselves 
to the cultivation of their gardens, and let their land 



CAPITALISTS OF ALGIERS. 101 

to the very tribe which had been dispossessed in 
order to make room for them. But the Metidja, 
from its proximity to Algiers, is naturally the locality 
in which professional and mercantile men seek for 
an investment ; just as the metropolitan counties 
are the region in which the successful London specu- 
lator undergoes his transformation into a country 
gentleman. Prom similar causes, the proprietorship 
in both cases changes hands very often; and to 
facilitate the transfers which the revolution of the 
wheel of Fortune continually compels, the French 
Government has constructed a cadastral map of the 
whole of the Metidja on a scale of 1 : 40,000, which 
is very nearly two inches to a mile, and the sales which 
take place from time to time are registered w^ith 
a careful reference to the position of the property on 
this map. 

I casually made the acquaintance of an intelligent 
Frenchman who owned a good deal of land in the 
plain. He had the day before bought two new farms; 
and he showed me a portion of the map in which 
they were laid down. The metairie system is ex- 
tremely well adapted to a country like Algeria, where 
the expenditure of capital by the tenant is a thing not 
to be dreamed of, but where, at the same tune, an 
intehigent agriculturist without capital may enrich 
his landlord and himself simultaneously. The gentle- 
man in question told me that he accidentally met 



102 A MODEL TENANT. 

a man in a diligence, and was so mncli pleased with 
him that he put him into a farm, the occupant of 
which had suddenly died. He performed his part 
here so well, that, on another farm falling vacant, his 
employer added it to the first, and was then going 
likewise to place him over the two new purchases. 
I was fortunate enough to get a sight of this phoenix of 
a farmer, and do not wonder at the good impression 
which he made. He was a tall, stalwart fellow, of six 
feet high, as wiry and active as an American back- 
woodsman, but with a thoroughly honest expression 
in his quick grey eye. I am sorry to say his yellow 
cheek indicated, that although unconquered he had not 
been unattacked by the evil genius of the plain; 
and I recommended his landlord to send him a stock 
of quinine from Algiers. 

Prom L'Arba the Metidja in the north and north- 
easterly directions is very low and wet, and is 
occupied almost exclusively by Arabs — except in the 
immediate vicinity of the road from the Maison 
Carree to Fonduck — until the Oued Hamiz is reached. 
This is a river which takes its rise in the Atlas, and 
runs for some distance in a north-east direction ; but 
on emerging from the hills at Fonduck it changes its 
course to the north-west, and falls into the sea about 
a couple of miles to the south of Cape Matifou. 

Fonduck itself is a village built inside a loop-holed 
wall of about 300 yards square, with a block-house 



EONDUCK. 103 

at three out of tlie four corners. It lies in the angle 
formed by two branches of the Hamiz, and occupies 
the site of a large covered bazaar {FonducJc), where the 
native population used to hold a market every Thurs- 
day. The original position on which the French estab- 
hshed themselves was a mamelon about two miles off, 
on the eastern side of the Hamiz. This site was found 
to be badly chosen, and the camp was moved, in 
1842, to another mamelon, about half a mile from the 
present village. Here may still be seen the ruins of 
very extensive barracks, from which there is a com- 
manding view. After the complete subjection of 
Algeria, in 1848, this place, hke the camps of L'Arba 
and the Harash, was abandoned as a military post; 
but the importance of the position, and the capabi- 
lities of the soil in the neighbourhood, induced the 
Government to spend a good deal of money in 
establishing there " a centre of population.'' Nothing 
can be more melancholy, however, than the appear- 
ance of the village. Its population is said to have 
been entirely removed several times, and in the 
summer every one expects " the fever'' as a matter 
of course. I should think there were not sixty 
houses in the whole, and of these all but three or 
four are mere cottages. One of the exceptions is 
the Mairie ; for Ponduck has recently been constituted 
the chief town of a commune, and honoured with 
a mayor, agreeably to the notion of Aristotle, that the 



]04 A PERFECTLY HAPPY MAN. 

State lias a prior existence to tliat of the individuals 
wliich compose it. 

I made the acquaintance of this worthy magistrate, 
who manifested a simple-minded satisfaction with 
his new dignity, only to be exceeded by that which 
a child evinces on acquiring his first cricket-bat. 
Nothing could be further removed from vanity than 
his calm complacency, his placid confidence that there 
he was the right man in the right place. He made 
me come into his house, and look at all the arrange- 
ments. One room, — the most spacious, being about 
ten feet by fifteen, — was being paved with glazed 
tiles. " Look there, Monsieur, cest gentil, nest ce 
pas F This is the apartment pour les noces. That 
other is my bureau — ^just opposite : cest commode ; 
do me the pleasure to pass into the garden : cest joli ; 
you see the almond-tree in the centre ; cest hien gentil, 
ga. Ah ! there is a great deal to do here, in fact 
everything ! but I trust I shall soon effect an improve- 
ment. My military life has given me the habitude of 
command. Yes, Monsieur" (this was in answer to a 
question of mine), "I have 4,000 indigenes in my 
commune ; there is much to do in administering the 
law. No, I don't understand Arabic : void mon 
interpreted' I looked with some interest at the 
prophet who was to communicate the oracles of 
Themis to the world without. His face exhibited the 
same good-humour as his chief's; he was bringing 



PREDOMINANCE OE SPANIARDS, 105 

home some carpenter's work for the official residence 
in his cart ; a prime minister in a blouse ! 

I found to my regret that the inhabitants of this 
Algerian Ulubrse did not greatly participate in the 
sanguine hopes of their magistrate. They took me, 
I fancy, for some official person, as I had a small 
sketch-book in my hand, and hoped that they might 
get some advantage by representing their views. One 
woman begged me to come into her cottage, and 
asked me how people could escape illness when they 
lived in such a place. It was, indeed, a wretched 
tenement, — merely a single room without a chimney, 
— in fact, a tent of bricks instead of canvas. By way 
of remedying the defect, a large square hole was 
knocked under the gable, and some boards nailed 
over it and round it, under the idea that the smoke 
might perhaps pass out. But, of course, whenever 
the inside of the hut was warmer than the atmosphere 
outside, the current of air necessarily set inwards, 
and I could hardly stop there five minutes, although 
the door was open the whole time. I found that here, 
although all grants of land had been made to the 
French, the predominant population was, as at L'Arba, 
Spanish. Agricultural labour seems absolutely into- 
lerable to the French emigrant. But the government 
appears determined to leave no stone unturned to 
make Fonduck prosper. A handsome new church is 
in course of building, and the cure, recently appointed. 



106 SCHOOLS AT EONDUCK. 

was described to me as an active, intelligent young 
man. I visited a mixed and an infant school; and 
although there were only about twenty children in 
each, they were in excellent order. They are managed 
by the Soeurs Hospitalieres. The mistress of the 
mixed school told me that many of the children were 
necessarily absent taking care of the cattle. 

There is one particular in the French arrangements, 
which at Ponduck has certainly increased the de- 
spondency with which the population regard their 
future prospects. With the exception of a flat surface 
of about 200 acres, which is artificially irrigated and 
employed in the cultivation of tobacco, the immediate 
neighbourhood is not cleared ; and the allotments of 
land which the concessionaires received are for the 
most part a mile off their habitations. This must add 
considerably to the fatigue — under any circumstances 
severe— to which the cultivator is subjected in the 
summer ; and when exhaustion comes upon him in 
the midst of his work, the distance of his home is an 
obstacle to his readily obtaining any wholesome re- 
freshment, and naturally he has recourse to the 
portable spirit-flask. The uncleared bush imme- 
diately around the village is the more striking, as, 
after it is passed, the land is cultivated with insig- 
nificant interruptions, for some distance on each side 
of the road, all the way to the Maison Carree. In 
fact, the spectator who stands on the site of the 



EXTENSIVE CULTIVATION. 107 

deserted camp, and looks towards Algiers, will see, 
perhaps, the greatest continuous extent of cultivated 
land furnished by one view in the whole of Algeria. 
His eye will pass over a surface as flat as the Cam- 
bridgeshire fens. On the road which runs quite 
straight to the north-west as far as the eye can see, 
there are two villages (the village du Midi, and the 
Maison Blanche, both mainly inhabited by Spaniards) 
and some insulated houses, and in the distance may 
be seen other white specks indicating European farm- 
houses, about as thick, I should say, as the steam- 
mills in the fens. 

I spent about three hours in rambling about the 
hills in the neighbourhood of Fonduck. Here the 
Atlas does not rise nearly so steeply as behind 
L'Arba, and the general character of the country 
was not unlike that through which the traveller 
passes who quits the South Western Railway at the 
Christchurch Road Station and drives across the 
country to the south, if, instead of heather and firs, 
one substitutes dwarf palms and lentisques growing 
to the height of five or six feet. Among the wind- 
ings of the hills I came upon several Arab villages 
of small size. All the gourhis were of straw, and the 
soil was cultivated in patches of twenty or forty acres 
each where the ground was tolerably flat. These 
sedentary Arabs sufi*er a good deal from the wild 
boars, which find refuge in the uncleared brushwood^ 



108 WILD BOARS. 

and destroy their crops while green. Every Friday 
(which is their Sabbath) they have a regular battue. 
Three or four hundred of them form a circle of 
beaters, and drive the boars into a smaller space, 
until at last they break cover, and afford the sports- 
man the chance of a shot. The day before my 
visit seven had been killed in this way. The Arabs 
will not eat the flesh themselves, but they sell the 
carcases to the European settlers, and a rasher from 
one of them furnished my breakfast. A ride of four 
hours had given me a good appetite, but I neverthe- 
less found the m.eat extremely hard on this as on 
other occasions. 

The Maison Carree, or, as it was called by the Turks, 
Bordj el Kantra (Eort of the Bridge or Pass), is a square 
building which, before the French invasion, served to 
defend the bridge over the Harash, and also to pro- 
tect the herds belonging to the State, which pastured 
in the marshes of the lower Harash, at that time not 
even partially drained. The day after the occupation 
of Algiers, Bourmont sent a brigade to seize this prize, 
and also the horses in the breeding stables of the 
Dey, which were in the same locality, and at Bassauta, 
an equally marshy district on the way to Cape Mati- 
fou. But the Bey of Constantino, who had, as in 
duty bound, brought his contingent to the aid of his 
liege lord, as soon as the advance of the French upon 
Bouzarieh and the attack of the Fort of the Emperor 



- 1 AN ARAB PRISON. 109 

showed that resistance was hopeless, set off to return 
to his own province, and swept all the cattle and 
horses away with him. The building is now used 
as a prison for Arab convicts sentenced for a longer 
period than a year. When I visited it there were 
890 inmates ; but the intendant told me that there 
were many more in Prance, — I suppose at Toulon. 
About 150 of them were at work, the most employed 
in making crin vegetal, and some few in laying out a 
garden in the immediate neighbourhood of the build- 
ing. The majority lie idle about the wards. At night 
they are kept seventy or eighty together in long 
rooms, which are lighted, but I did not understand 
that any surveillance was kept up. The moral effect 
of the punishment seems very questionable. During 
their imprisonment they pick up a little French from 
the soldiers who guard them ; and when they are 
discharged, they form connexions with the worst part 
of the European population in the towns, by whose 
co-operation they become worse thieves than before. 
Such, at least, is the view of the officer in charge of 
the prison. He looked forward to the abolition of the 
establishment concurrently with a considerable exten- 
sion of the prison at Lambessa, of which I shall speak 
in another place. Certainly, if physiognomy furnishes 
any means of judging of character, the prisoners 
had not improved by their detention in the Maison 
Carree. 



110 lERIGATED GARDENS. 

The space between the sea and the road from the 
Maison Carree to Algiers, is, after the bridge of the 
Harash is crossed, almost throughout occupied by 
Maltese and Spanish market gardeners. The soil is 
perfectly levelled, and irrigated by the method which, 
universally prevails wherever an Arab population has 
set foot, viz. the chain of buckets and the well. All 
parts of the apparatus are made without a particle of 
iron being used. The buckets are jars tied to a rope 
of halfa, and the parts of the wheels are kept together 
with wooden pegs, where nails would ordinarily be 
used. The mules which turn the wheel appear to 
continue their work without any superintendence on 
the part of the owner : but I suppose he is near, 
although invisible, and would summarily punish any 
cessation on the part of the poor animals from their 
monotonous task. ^ 

Half way to Algiers is the village of Hussein Dey, 
where an enormous building which was formerly a 
summer palace of the Algerine Deys, now serves as 
a magazine for tobacco, of which the Government is 
the sole purchaser. The road which proceeds from 
this point direct to Algiers was shut up for the pur- 
poses of repair at the time I was there, and the 
traffic passed by another which runs westwards for 
about a mile, and joins the Algiers and Kouba road 
at the "Ruisseau" mentioned above. 



BOUEFAHIK. 



Ill 



CHAPTER VI. 



The most important inland town in the central 
province of Algeria is Blidah, which lies at the foot of 
the Atlas, about thirty -three miles from Algiers, in a 
south-west by south direction. The intercourse with 
it is so great that three dihgences run in the day, 
some by the El Biar and Douera road, and others by 
that which passes through Mustapha and Birkadem. 
All, however, pass through Les Quatre Chemins. The 
first important place traversed is BoufFarik (Father of 
separation), a name given to a slight elevation in the 
midst of swamps, where at the time of the French 
invasion a large cattle market used to be held, fre- 
quented by Arabs from all parts of the plain. This 
is now resumed under French superintendence. The 
market-day is Monday, when several thousands of 
Arabs may be seen collected together in a large enclo- 
sure to the east of the road, a little beyond the town 
of Bouffarik. In the middle is a caravanserai, and 
accommodation for the officials who register the sales, 
— an important regulation in a country where cattle- 



1 12 GENERAL LAMORTCI^IRE. 

lifting has begun to be considered a dangerous 
pursuit, but has scarcely ceased to be regarded as a 
creditable one. Enormous quantities of sheep, cattle, 
mules, and horses are collected in the enclosure ; but, 
on the day I was there, I did not see a single camel 
among them. 

When the French first obtained a footing on the 
south side of the Metidja, there was a considerable 
breadth of wood covering the country to the north of 
BoulFarik, and the facility which this and the marshes 
afforded the natives for menacing the communications 
between Algiers and Blidah, rendered it a matter of 
vital importance to remove it. In the year 1833, the 
desired result was brought about, chiefly by the 
agency of the Arabs themselves, over whom a young 
French officer, whose name has since become well 
known throughout Europe, had contrived to gain 
great influence. Lamoriciere, then captain of a bat- 
talion of Zouaves, was the first Frenchman who con- 
ceived the idea of gaining the confidence of the tribes. 
Trusting to his knowledge of the language and his 
tact, he ventured among the Arabs of the then un- 
subdued Metidja without any escort ; and under his 
auspices a separate department of administration was 
formed, which, under the name of the Bureau Arabe, 
subsequently expanded into the machinery by which 
the invaders have solved the problem of governing 
the native population of the whole of their acquisi- 



CAMP D'EELON. 113 

tions. He himself was the first head of the new office, 
and his staiF consisted only of a couple of French 
officers and three native interpreters. The woods of 
Bouffarik were felled, and the swamps partially drained, 
by the assistance rendered by friendly chiefs ; and the 
route to Blidah thus effectually secured. European 
traders even ventured to frequent the Arab markets ; 
but this step seems to have been a little prema- 
ture. The appearance of the strangers excited ill 
will, and it became necessary to establish a fortified 
camp in the neighbourhood, to protect them against 
sudden acts of violence. For this purpose the Count 
d'Erlon built a square work in the immediate vicinity of 
Bouffarik, and furnished it with defences which effec- 
tually guaranteed its safety against the attack of any 
enemy. He was, however, unable to secure the gar- 
rison against a much more formidable foe, the pesti- 
lential exhalations of the surrounding swamps ; and 
the Camp d'Erlon, as it was called from the governor 
under whose auspices it had been constructed, acquired 
the sobriquet of La Cimitiere. About four miles 
beyond Bouffarik, Marshal Bugeaud attempted to form 
a military colony in an even more inauspicious locality, 
at Bene Mered. This is much lower than Bouffarik, 
and more unhealthy; but its position on the main 
road into the interior, and its plentiful supply of water 
(for a strong spring rises in the middle of the village), 
tempt a few French to settle there in spite of the 

I 



1 14 BLIDAH. 

danger. Over the spring a handsome monument in 
the form of an obeHsk is erected, to the memory of 
twenty-two soldiers, who, in the revolt of 1842, were 
surprised there by ten times their number of Arab 
horsemen. They succeeded in resisting the attack 
until reheved ; but only five of their number survived. 

Blidah is said to have had a population of 18,000 
a few years before the Prench invasion. But in 1825 
it was entirely destroyed by an earthquake, in which 
half its inhabitants perished. The panic-stricken sur- 
vivors at first deserted the locality, with the intention 
of forming" a new settlement farther to the north ; but 
they soon returned to their ancient haunts, unwiUing 
to forsake a spot to which they had been accustomed, 
and which enjoys the advantages of an ample supply 
of water and a fertile soil, to an extent unsurpassed 
by any other town in Algeria. The native population 
is now under 4,000, having been reduced to that 
extent by the miseries of war in the first eight years 
of the French occupation. The town has been almost 
entirely rebuilt, with rectangular streets and European 
houses. The immediate neighbourhood is covered 
wdth orange and lemon groves, and is a very favour- 
able locality for tobacco, of which the cultivation has 
lately made great strides. I was told that some land 
in the vicinity of the town in w^hich this plant was 
grown paid a rent of 300 francs the hectare (or £4 16s. 
the acre). This, however, was under peculiarly 



CULTIYATION OE TOBACCO. 115 

favourable circumstances for irrigation. What is 
especially desired is a soil of a light sandy gravel, and 
an unlimited supply of wsitev. When these two con- 
ditions are secured, the hectare sometimes produces to 
the amount of more than 2,000 francs. The expense 
of cultivation (including irrigation) is estimated at 
about 1,000 francs the hectare. The leaves of the 
plant, where the cultivation succeeds best, are stripped 
three times in the year. It may be easily conceived 
that the French are attracted by the advantages of a 
place which enables them to gratify their desire of 
acquiring a proprietorship in land without submitting 
to the irksomeness of agricultural labour. Blidah is 
almost more French than Algiers itself, and has its 
theatre, hotels, cafes, and all other appliances of 
enjoyment which make up the bourgeois' notion of 
civilisation. The markets within the walls are well 
supplied with meat, fruit, and vegetables by the Arabs 
of the neighbourhood ; and there is besides a weekly 
market held every Friday outside the town for the 
purposes of general traffic between the natives and the 
Europeans. 

From Blidah the road into the interior takes a turn 
towards the west, and descends in that direction for 
six or seven miles until it reaches the Chiffa, up the 
gorge of which the present road to Medeah is carried. 
For the next twelve or fourteen miles after the ascent 
commences, nothing can be imagined more romantic 

I 2 



116 GORGE OE THE CHIEEA. 

than the route. The scenery is something between 
that of Herefordshire and North Wales, the colouring 
of the sandstone rock and the rich vegetation remind- 
ing one of the former, and the precipitous character of 
the mountain forms of the latter. Wherever there is 
sufficiently flat space for trees to take root, the ravines 
are richly wooded ; but in most parts there is room 
for only the lentisque. The narrowest part of the 
gorge is just above a post station where a little brook, 
called the Ruisseau des Singes from the large number 
of monkeys which haunt it, falls into the Chiffa. Here 
the perpendicular walls of rock are a very few yards 
apart, and it requires some nerve to sit in a carriage 
while passing along the narrow road which overhangs 
the abyss below ; although, as the horses which draw 
yon wear no blinkers, you have an additional security 
for yourself in their natural instincts. Still, one 
wishes for a parapet, which is in general dispensed 
with, as its existence would involve the widening the 
road, and the extreme steepness of the rocks necessi- 
tates the removal of many tons of their sides for every 
additional inch of road-way. The greatest danger, 
however, arises not from the narrowness of the route, 
but from the softness of the rock out of which it is 
cut. Long after rain, streamlets spring here and there 
from the sides of the cutting, and it is no easy matter 
to dispose of these, and get them across the twenty 
feet or so which intervene between the bottom of the 



DANGEROUS ROAD. 1 17 

cliff from which they issue and the ravine, without 
their doing mischief by the way. After every shower, 
in spite of all provision which has been made, the 
margin of the road is full of large notches cut by the 
running waters, like those which the knife of an idle 
schoohboy leaves in the edge of his desk. The can- 
tonniers are on the look-out for these gaps, and build 
them up with a pile of large flat stones, which are 
soon ground into a condition of stability by the passing 
traffic. Some rain bad fallen the night before I left 
Medeah, and the wheels of the coach, while descending 
the terraces of the gorge, passed over several of these 
corbel-like patches where two days before the road 
had been apparently quite sound. If there were to be 
any remission of diligence on the part of the watchers, 
the most fearful accidents might happen, and no 
intelligence of the particulars would reach the world. 
Down w^ould^'o horses, carriage, and traveller, into the 
bed of the Chiffa, far away from any European habita- 
tion. In the course of the day, some Arab fishermen 
or shepherds would perhaps light upon the wreck, 
when in their quiet impassive way they would collect 
the fragments of harness and ironwork, with the 
remark "Allah kerim " (God is merciful), and leave 
the mutilated corpses to be devoured by the jackals. 

On leaving the gorge of the Chiffa, carobs, almond 
trees, and wild olives of great size are seen. After 
quitting the valley of the river altogether, the road 



118 MUDLIKE SOIL. 

continues to ascend in a general westerly direction, 
and attains its highest point about half a mile before 
arriving at Medeah. I estiniated the col over which 
we passed at about 2,961 feet above the level of 
the sea, and 2,490 above Blidah. Soon after leaving 
the valley of the Chiffa, at about 1,900 feet above the 
sea level, the soil assumes a rather mud-like character, 
and continues to present this appearance for nearly 
a mile. I observed the same phenomenon on the way 
from Oran to Maskara, in the western province, at 
nearly the same height above the sea, and apparently 
of about the same thickness, viz. 150 or 160 feet. 
It also appeared on the road into Great Kabylie, but 
at a much lower elevation, viz. not more than 850 
feet. I was told, in the case of that at Maskara, that 
the soil was considerably impregnated with salt. 
This I had no means of ascertaining ; to the eye the 
appearance was that of simple mud, exactly like the 
deposit through which the South-Eastern Railway is 
carried in the neighbourhood of New Cross, the loose 
texture of which caused an accident on a large scale 
when the line was first opened, and necessitated the 
expenditure of much money to prevent a recurrence 
of the mischief. 

Medeah, which is placed just on the southern 
incline of the first ridge of the Atlas, is a military 
position of considerable importance to the conquerors. 
They have occupied it permanently since 1840 ; but it 



PASSAGE or THE BIBAN. ] 19 

had been in their hands three times before. The 
events of that year and of 1839 showed that, so long 
as it remained under the Arabs, there could be no 
permanent security for the settlers in the Metidja, or 
even for those in the Phaz of Algiers. On the 2d of 
November, 1839, the Duke d' Orleans entered Algiers 
at the head of an army which, under the guidance of 
Marshal Valee, had performed the feat of marching 
from Constantine by land, through the pass of the 
Biban, or Iron Gates. This exploit was only intended, 
like the fortification of Paris by M. Guizot, " faire un 
effet moral," and it was achieved by the co-operation 
of the commandant of Bougie, who had been in- 
structed to make some movements to draw upon 
himself the attention of the native tribes that would 
otherwise have opposed the transit of the army. But 
although the success was as empty as that of the 
celebrated German campaign of Caligula, the enthu- 
siasm was as great. The whole of the soldiers were 
feasted in public on the esplanade of the Bab-el-Oued ; 
the conquest of Algeria was proclaimed complete ; 
a palm branch, plucked (as was said) at the gorge of 
the pass, was presented in the name of the army to 
the Duke ; and the official newspapers declared that 
the time of difficulty was at last at an end, and 
France about to receive the glorious recompense of 
her labours. The Duke returned to Paris at the 
conclusion of these festivities, and three days after- 



120 AEAB OUTBREAK. 

wards, on the 10th of November, the war broke out, 
which in a couple of months swept every European 
settler out of the Metidja, and obHged the French to 
draw in their outposts, and devote all their strength 
to the maintaining four fortified camps,* the com- 
munication of which with one another and with 
Algiers was continually interrupted. The plain was 
invaded simultaneously from the east, west, and 
south. In the first-mentioned quarter, the Kabyles, 
keeping the forts of Fonduck and Kara-Mustapha 
blockaded, advanced as far as Birkadem and the 
Jardin d'Essai. Blidah was so distressed for want 
of provisions, that many of the native inhabitants, 
although well afiected to the French, were expelled 
from the town, as the sole alternative of their dying 
of hunger. In the spring of 1840 the French had 
collected a sufficient force to resume the offensive, 
and on the 12th of May a pitched battle with Abd- 
el-Kader resulted in giving them the possession of 
Medeah, which they entered on the 17th, and found 
deserted of all its inhabitants. The present town is 
almost entirely new. It consists of extensive barracks, 
a military hospital, which makes up about 500 beds, 
and a few houses, the whole surrounded by a loop- 
hole enceinte. The ancient aqueduct which supplied 
the town with water still exists, but it is the only 

* These were L'Arba, Blidah, Fonduck, and Kara-Mustapha, about 
four miles to the east-north-east of Fonduck. 



MJ^DEAH. 121 

monument of the former importance of the place. 
The view from the walls is extremely beautiful. 
Magnificent mountains form the frame of the picture, 
on one of which may be seen Milianah, likewise an 
important military position. This may be easily 
reached in a day on horseback ; but there is no road 
practicable for a carriage, although there is one direct 
from Bhdah. 

I found very comfortable quarters at the Hotel du 
Gastronome, the only establishment of the kind in 
the town ; and the next day set off to see the copper 
mines at Mouzaia, an establishment in the heart of 
the Atlas, about eight miles off. The route for 
two-thirds of the way is the same which formerly 
was the only communication between Medeah and 
the plain of the Metidja. It passes westward along 
the north side of the amphitheatre in which Medeah 
lies, at rather a higher level than the town, and 
affords a magniJicent view of a sea of mountains 
on the left hand. After a while, the descent on 
Mouzaia begins. It is in a plain surrounded by 
hills ; and in its immediate neighbourhood the rotten 
dirt-like earth noticed above again takes the place 
of the sandstone and limestone which elsewhere cha- 
racterise the Atlas. The establishment consists of about 
150 workmen, many of whom have their wives and 
families with them, in the aggregate about 400 souls. 
They all live in a fortified building, loop-holed ; for 



]22 MINES OE MOUZAIA. 

at the first beginning of the undertaking (in 1846) 
they were several times attacked by the Arabs, who 
indeed succeeded in destroying an outlying building 
rather nearer to the northern crest of the Atlas, 
the ruins of which remain. This state of things is, 
however, now past ; there is no longer any garrison 
at the works, and the state of the walls indicates 
a belief that security is perfect. The worst enemy 
that remains is the fever in the summer-time. All 
the workmen who receive six francs a day or more 
pay one franc into a fund, from which when sick 
they are allowed two francs a day. There is a 
little chapel, and a resident priest to serve it, a 
school conducted by three Soeurs Hospitalieres, an 
infirmary, and a doctor ; but grave cases of sickness 
are sent to the hospital at Medeah. The workmen 
are almost all foreigners, chiefly Piedmontese. Next 
in number come the Spaniards, and there are also 
a few Germans. The married people with families 
are allowed two rooms, but the single men live three 
or four together in one. I went into one in which 
there were three Frenchmen; and another which 
belonged to a married German. This man's wife 
was so pleased at my addressing her in her native 
tongue, that she insisted on my sitting down to drink 
a glass of wine. While she went out to wash a 
glass, another female came in and sat down. Not 
knowing who she was, I told her in French that 



VISIT TO THE TENIAT. ]23 

the owner of the apartment had just gone out, when 
she said, " O, Sir, praj don't speak to me in French : 
let me hear the language of my fatherland The 
same feeling brought three other Germans to shake 
hands with me as I got on my horse to go away. 
One, a very strong hale-looking young man, told me 
he had been there three months, and in one of these 
had earned 400 francs. My hostess had before said 
that some only made three francs a day. The 
explanation of these different accounts seems to be, 
that the payment is by the piece ; and probably 
the unfortunate persons referred to had had fever 
and lost their strength, while the young man, having 
arrived in the winter, had as yet not experienced 
this misfortune. He told me that he had served 
three years as a soldier in Berhn, and had seen a 
good deal of other parts of the world. He did not 
think he should remain long in Africa. 

The copper ore obtained in these mines is smelted 
on the spot, and conveyed on the back of mules to 
Medeah. It is from thence carted to Algiers, and 
there shipped, chiefly (as I was told) to England, to 
the amount of 2,000 tons annually. Each ton of ore 
contains from 500 to 600 grammes of silver, but no 
appreciable quantity of gold. 

I was desirous of visiting the Teniat (defile), as the 
pass over the mountains is called by which the old 
road from the Metidja ran ; and to do this, it was 



124 BATTLE OE THE TENIAT. 

requisite to have the escort of a native. The kindness 
of the manager of the works procured me the com- 
pany of an Arab, who, in spite of his mean appearance 
and the yet more miserable condition of his horse, 
was, I imagine, a man of some distinction ; for all 
whom we met on the way kissed his hand with great 
respect, except one proud-looking fellow, who recipro- 
cated a salute on the cheek. 

I was told it would take two hours to mount to 
the Teniat, but we performed the distance really in 
little more than an hour. This is the position which 
Abd-ehKader occupied in the battle which has been 
referred to; and he all but succeeded in holding it. 
He had placed several guns in commanding situations, 
and the ascent is so steep that the French had, in 
many parts, to employ their hands in climbing, and 
not an officer up to the general remained on horse- 
back. The original intention of Marshal Valee had 
been to penetrate the mountains by way of Milianah ; 
but the Emir, by a series of manoeuvres, the skill and 
courage of which called forth the admiration of the 
French officers, succeeded in turning him to this pass, 
where preparations had been made for receiving him, 
and where the Arabs were assured by their chief that 
the whole army of the invaders would find their 
graves. His expectations were nearly realized. The 
bulk of the French army was composed of young 
soldiers ; but, fortunately, the general adopted the 



X VIEW EEOM THE TENIAT. 125 

precaution of placing veterans in the heads of his 
columns, and this wise measure saved the day. The 
generals Changarnier and Lamoriciere, then colonels, 
greatly distinguished themselves on this occasion. 
The latter led one of the attacking columns. 

The construction of the new road to Medeah 
through the valley of the ChifFa, has, as in all similar 
cases, been fatal to the old one over the Teniat, which 
has been let go out of repair, although for some time 
after the occupation of Medeah it was kept up in 
a condition which admitted of the passage of artillery. 
So soft is the soil, and so violent the rains, that even 
already it is, in som.e places, almost washed away. 
No one uses it but the Arabs with their mules ; but 
they, the most obstinate conservatives on the face of 
the earth, persist in preferring it to the new route. 

Prom the summit of the pass the view over the 
Metidja is slightly limited on the western side by the 
projecting buttresses of the Atlas ; but towards the 
north-east the whole extent of the Sahel as far as the 
Maison Carree lies directly before the spectator. 
Behind the Sahel is the sea; and, in the extreme 
distance to the right, the lower ranges of the Atlas, 
which beyond Eonduck take a northerly direction, 
and constitute the western bank of the valley of the 
Boudouaou. This part is thickly covered with wood, 
and, more than almost any other portion of Algeria, 
the haunt of wild beasts. But in the midst of the 



126 



TOMB OF THE QUEEN 



vast expanse, where the traces of men are so shght, 
the eye is attracted by an object bespeaking an 
altogether different order of things. This is a conical 
pyramid, standing on the highest part of the Sahel, 
which even from that distance indicates that it must 
have been raised by the hand of man, and formed of 
a material of a more durable character than the 
ordinary soil of the hills. It goes among the natives 
by the name of Khober-el-B,oumiyeh, " Tomb of the 
Roman woman," (or, the " Christian woman,") and 
appears on the charts under that of " Tombeau de la 
Reine." Shaw says that, in his time, the Turks 
called it Maltapasi (the Treasure of the Sugar-loaf). 
There can be no doubt, however, that it is really an 
old Mauritanian work, the same which a Roman 
geographer* terms " the common monument of the 
royal family," and that it was erected by the same 
people and for the same purposes as another tumulus 
in the province of Constantine that the French have 
christened the tomb of Syphax," which is in a far 
better state of preservation, and which will be described 

* Mekj De situ orbis, i. 6. 10. The commentators, with the excep- 
tion of Perizonius, have made sad confusion of this passage, which, 
as it stands in the MSS., is perfectly lucid to any one who sails along 
the coast, as the writer tacitly assumes, from west to east. " TJrhium 

quas habet [Numidia] maximcB sunt, Cirta procul a mari lol ad 

mare, aliquando ignobilis, nunc quia Jubm regia fuit et quod Ccesarea 
vocitatur, illustris. Citra kanc, {nam in medio ferme littore sita est,) 
Cartinna et Arsinna sunt oppida et Quiza castellum et Laturus sinus et 
Sardabale fluvius : ultra, Monumentum commune regia gentis, deinde 
leosium et Ruthisia urbes, et fluentes inter eas Aveus et Nabar,'' &c. 



A MAUJEIITANIAN MONUMENT. 127 

in another chapter. The Tombeau de la Reine/' 
however, has the advantage of the other monument as 
regards its situation, which is incomparable for the 
object designed. The crest of the Sahel, in the part 
where it stands, rises considerably above the general 
level, and for many miles out at sea the " tomb " 
forms the best of landmarks. It may be seen also 
from many parts of the plain of the Metidja, and from 
the whole of the northern crest of the Atlas. The 
best land view of all is that from the cemetery at 
Blidah, from which it bears west-north-west. It is a 
truncated cone on a cylindrical base, built of a fine 
limestone. Shaw estimated the diameter of the base 
at ninety feet, and the height of the monument at 
a hundred ; but he is so inaccurate as regards its 
figure, that I should be inchned to place little depend- 
ence on these numbers. The cylindrical base is 
certainly not more than one-fourth the height of the 
whole, but Shaw makes it one-half. Neither is it 
easy to believe that the diameter of the base is less 
than the altitude of the whole, although it certainly 
does not exceed it in so great a proportion as is the 
case with the " tomb of Syphax." 

It had been my intention, immediately on returning 
from the visit to Medeah, to proceed by sea to 
Philippeville, and devote the remainder of my time to 
a tour in the interior of the province of Constantine, 
— far the richest of the three in Roman remains. 



128 VISIT TO GREAT KABYLIE. 

Accidental circumstances, however, caused the delay 
of a steamer in which I had taken a berth, and 
I found that I had foar clear days to spare before 
embarking. I had often before, from the flat roof of 
my hotel in Algiers, admired the Djerjera with its 
snow-clad peaks, and felt a great desire to see some- 
thing of the hardy race inhabiting its valleys, the 
complete subjection of which to France had been the 
work of only the last year. The weather — it was now 
the last week of March — had become fine and settled, 
and an enterprising inhabitant of Algiers determined 
to take advantage of the new military road which had 
just been completed, to run a dihgence into the heart 
of Great Kabylie. This was advertised to go as 
far as Tizi-Ouzou in a single day, and I calculated 
that, in the event of the promise being realized, 
I should be able to visit both Dellys, the port of 
Kabylie, and Port Napoleon, the military key of the 
country, and return to Algiers in time to take the 
steamboat for the eastern province. My kind friend, 
the Yicomte Fenelon, assured me that I should never 
get to Tizi-Ouzou by the diligence in a day, or 
probably at all ; but I determined to try my chance, 
and, fortified with letters from him to the com- 
mandant at Tizi-Ouzou, I set off at five o'clock in the 
morning, in a vehicle something like a low break 
covered with a canvas hood. 

We left Algiers by the road to the Maison Carree, 



CROSS THE METIDJA. 129 

and crossed the Metidja by an excellent road running 
about east by north to the low hills which intervene 
between Fonduck and the sea. For the seven or 
eight miles after leaving the IMaison Carree, the culti- 
vation of corn is continuous on both sides of the road, 
which here passes along a comparatively elevated 
strip. But from Kuiba, a village situated on the 
road about seventeen miles from Algiers, the country 
begins to be under tillage only in spots here and 
there, and its general appearance is that of a vast flat 
covered with asphodel and wild artichoke, and studded 
with brushwood. The road gradually descends from 
this point to the bridge of the Reghaija, one of the 
sluggish brooks of the Metidja which struggle north- 
wards to the sea, turning the soil in their neighbour- 
hood into marsh. The Reghaija is here but little 
above the sea-level ; but the road at once begins again 
to ascend, and in three or four miles reaches an ele- 
vation of 160 or 170 feet, when a descent again 
commences through low hills, over which the brush- 
wood is extremely thick, to the new village of Alma 
in the valley of the Boudouaou. This river is consi- 
dered the boundary of the Metidja to the eastward. 
The bridge of the Boudouaou I estimated at about 
thirty-five feet above the sea-level, and betw^een seventy 
and eighty below the village. Just after crossing it 
we stopped for breakfast, an affair of nearly two hours, 
as the horses which had brought us from the Maison 

K 



130 WILD BEASTS. 

Carree had to be fed and rested, to enable them to 
resume their course. I bad here an opportunity of 
making the acquaintance of my fellow-travellers. Two 
of them w^ere the wives of French officers going to 
join their husbands in Kabylie, and a third that of 
a colonist in the same country, of a lower class. 
Besides these was a young German nobleman, with 
a Russian tutor, who was about to make a tour in the 
same region. I thought he was going on a shooting 
excursion, as he carried a double-barrelled gun in his 
hand; but he told me that he only did this on 
account of the character of the country, thinking it 
well to appear armed among such a population. 

Between the descent upon the Boudouaou and the 
neighbourhood of the Isser, the country for the space 
of fifteen or twenty miles is a good deal infested with 
wild beasts, and the Arabs and colonists sometimes 
lose their cattle. This intelligence seemed to cause 
some discomfort to the German, which was increased 
by one of the ladies informing him that a lion had 
been seen in the middle of the day about a fortnight 
before, after having killed two cows belonging to 
a neighbouring douair. Panthers are also found in 
the locality, — an animal much more dreaded than 
the lion by the natives. We saw, however, neither 
these nor any other beast of prey ; nor, indeed, any 
indication of their existence, except it were some 
bones apparently belonging to a slaughtered ox, 



MARKET ON THE ISSER. 131 

which seemed as if they had been gnawed by 
jackals. 

The road continues with a gentle rise and fall 
through a thickly-wooded country, until after passing 
a col of a few hundred feet above the sea-level, thirty- 
seven miles distant from Algiers ; when the descent 
into the valley of the Isser, the frontier of Kabylie, com- 
mences, and the wood begins to be more sparse and 
at last to fail altogether. The region through which 
the Reghaija, the Boudouaou, and the Oued Corso 
(another small river between the Boudouaou and 
the Isser) flow, comprises the outlian (or circle) of 
Khachna. On arriving at the Isser, we found that 
it was the day of the weekly market, and had we 
been earlier, should probably have seen several thou- 
sands of the natives collected in a large open space 
on the eastern bank of the river ; but it was nearly 
four o'clock in the afternoon, and the greater part of 
the crowd had already dispersed. Others were mount- 
ing their horses and mules to make the best of their 
way home. The French have built a caravanserai 
here, for the convenience of the officers and other 
travellers whose business may take them into Kabylie ; 
and three of my fellow-travellers, — the German with 
his companion, and one of the ladies, — stopped at it. 
I went on with the remaining two as far as Zib 
Zamoun, another caravanserai where we were to pass 
the night, and where (as I had been forewarned) it 

K 2 



132 MARSHY PLAINS. 

became necessary to exchange the carriage for a seat 
on a horse or mule. Except for the herds of cattle 
which cover it, nothing could be more dreary than the 
face of the country for some miles beyond the Isser. 
It presents the appearance of large marshy plains 
covered vrith dwarf-palm and the plants which love 
wet soils, especially the asphodel, which fills the air 
with a smell no less powerful and even more dis- 
agreeable than that which proceeds from the turnip 
fields of Norfolk. It was at this time in full flower. 
The road through the plain was extremely bad, and 
we were all obliged to get out several times to enable 
the horses to extricate the vehicle from the ruts in 
which it had stuck. At one time I despaired of 
getting on any farther; but with the assistance of 
some natives in raising one of the wheels, and an 
energetic appeal, both by word and whip, to the 
struggling horses, we succeeded in scrambling out of 
our prison, and reached Zib Zamoun about an hour 
before sunset. 

I had learnt before setting out in the morning, 
that the idea of proceeding as far as Tizi-Ouzou on 
wheels had been renounced; but I still hoped that, 
if we had arrived tolerably early at Zib Zamoun, I 
might have been able to obtain horses to proceed 
onwards at once. But this now was impossible, 
and I made up my mind to pass the night in 
the caravanserai, and set ofip, if I could obtain the 



CARAVANSERAIS. 133 

means, an hour before daybreak. The caravanserais 
of Algeria are generally large squares or oblongs, 
adapted for defence, in case of necessity, against 
any attack of the natives. The quadrangle is 
entered by only one door in the loop-holed wall. 
Inside there is a certain amount of shed for mer- 
chandise and horses belonging to travellers, or for 
the common soldiers ; and in the open space in the 
middle there lie mules, asses, and camels. The gar- 
dien of the caravanserai is allowed to receive guests 
like the landlord of an hotel, reserving only two or 
three rooms for the use of the military officers who 
may be on their way to join their posts. When they 
accompany troops who pass the night in bivouack, 
they have no claim to this accommodation. The 
other apartments are filled with beds, four or five in 
one room, and the accommodation is of the roughest 
kind. You get sheets, but not water unless you ask 
for it. In fact, the description which was given to 
me before I quitted Algiers exhausts the subject. On 
a un abri, et meme quelque chose a ^nanger^ et V on 
n est pas vole : voila tout. The doors do not fasten, 
and I was making up my mind to pass the night in 
my cloak on one of four beds, with my writing-case 
under my^ head, in the uncertainty of who might be 
the tenants of the others, when I fortunately met 
with a French officer, the colonel commanding the 
regiment of Dellys, who, on finding that I was the 



134 HOSPITABLE FRENCHMEN. 

bearer of a letter of introduction to the commandant 
of Tizi-Ouzou, courteously asked me to dine with him- 
self and another official, the intendant of Dellys ; and 
induced the " gardien " to put me into a separate 
room containing only two beds. The second of these 
was occupied by the colonel's orderly, who was not 
allowed to enter the apartment until I might reason- 
ably be supposed to be asleep, and vacated it the 
next morning before the hour at which I intended to 
rise. But though the politeness of these gentlemen 
procured me an excellent dinner and comparatively 
comfortable quarters, I passed a wretched night. The 
noise of the horses munching their barley or whinnying 
to one another, of camels growling, and soldiers 
talking, woke me as soon as ever I closed my eyes, 
and I rose before daybreak with a headache and more 
tired than when I lay down. 

We set out from Zib Zamoun in a regular caravan. 
I had agreed overnight to give an Arab a couple of 
francs more than the usual tariff for a mule, on con- 
dition that we should start not later than half-past 
five ; but when morning arrived, I found that although 
the mule was brought, the guide was not forth- 
coming, and he did not make his appearance until 
an hour later, when the rest of the party who intended 
proceeding into Kabylie were ready. At last the 
cavalcade issued out of the gate of the caravanserai ; 
the two French women and myself on three mules, 



YALLEY or THE SEBAOU. 135 

a Jew pedlar with liis wares on a fourth, next five 
packhorses loaded with merchandise, also belonging 
to the Jew, then three asses, each with a Kabyle 
behind him, loaded with corn and oil jars. Presently 
we were joined by four camels, but these after a time 
turned ofi" on another track. Zib Zamoun caravan- 
serai is situated nearly at the top of the col which 
separates the valley of the Isser from that of the 
Sebaou, the principal stream of Kabylie ; and within 
a mile the road began to descend, in terraces along 
the side of the mountain, to the level of the latter 
river. The soil is extremely soft and rotten ; and 
although there had not been rain for some days, 
we got on very slowly. The holes made by the feet 
of the baggage animals a few days back remained, 
partially hardened ; and every minute I expected 
my mule to break her legs by treading into some of 
these, until we got down to the level of the river. 
The present road into Kabylie pursues the left bank, 
not crossing it as the old one (which alone appears 
on the maps) did at the Borj-Sebaou. Two small 
streams, which are forded, fall into the Sebaou from 
the southern side. After a while we left the river 
and struck inland in a south-easterly direction, and 
soon after Tizi-Ouzou (hill of the prickly broom) 
appeared in view. Its position is highly picturesque. 
The river Sebaou, after descending from the high 
mountains in the south of Kabylie, makes a kind of 



136 rORT OF TIZI-OUZOU. 

loop from east to west northwards. This bend is 
caused by a mountain of 1,200 or 1,300 feet high, 
which is joined to the hills lying south of it by a 
low narrow neck ; and it is on a manielon rising out 
of this neck that the fort of Tizi-Ouzou stands. 
From its walls one has a charming view of the river, 
both before it vanishes behind the hill and after 
its reappearance, according as one looks to the east 
or the west. Northwards is the elevation which 
forms the peninsula, and to the south and the south- 
east higher mountains still, the latter being the snow 
peaks of Djerjera, the most lofty summits in North 
Africa, except some in the Aures. 

The day proved extremely sultry and my mule very 
sluggish, and the discomfort from these causes was 
increased by having only the common Arab harre, 
or packsaddle, to sit upon. The muleteer continually 
left his charge in order to chatter with the Kabyles, 
and then I could not avoid falling into the rear of 
the procession. At last I discovered that the words 
" Ah ! ye brute ! " pronounced in an angry tone and 
with as much of the guttural as my south-country 
mouth could compass, was not a bad imitation of 
the Arab interjection used for stimulating baggage- 
animals. I applied them with considerable success 
for a league or two, when the cunning creature 
discovered the imposition, and heard the appeal with 
perfect composure. Beating produced no effect what- 



KABYLE EARMING. 137 

ever ; and the projecting " barre " hindered the appli- 
cation of spurs. The only experiment which did not 
entirely fail was tickling the shoulder of the animal 
with a small piece of stick, which, I suspect, was 
imagined to be a fly. 

From the moment of arriving on the banks of the 
Sebaou, it became plain that the land was cultivated 
by very much better farmers than the Arabs. The 
Kabyles are extremely industrious, and their crops 
were almost as clean as those in the eastern counties. 
There was a great breadth of land under cultivation ; 
and the extreme fertility of the soil prevents the 
necessity of doing more than ploughing a few inches 
deep. The Kabyle at his plough is exactly represented 
by the figures in the old bas-reliefs ; and the instru- 
ment itself is constructed precisely as Virgil teaches. 
There is not a particle of iron about it except the 
tip of the share ; and it is so hght, that the owner 
may be constantly seen carrying the whole except the 
yoke, and sometimes that too, home on his shoulders. 
The oxen are of very low stature, something like the 
Breton breed, and the agriculturist holds the single 
handle of the plough with his right hand while he 
guides them with a long stick stretched out in his 
left. We passed by one or two Kabyle villages, and 
saw some others on the mountains which bound the 
valley of the Sebaou to the south. Mountains close 
in both sides of the valley, in many places well cul- 



138 SUBJUGATION OE KABYLIE. 

tivated and wooded. The scenery is about on the 
same scale as that of the vale of Newlands, near 
Keswick. The huts of the natives are built of stone 
and thatched, without any chimney, but still of rather 
a superior order to the gourhis of the agricultural 
Arabs. Each has in general a very small bit of 
garden attached to it, surrounded by a fence of dry 
camel-thorn, so low that it can be useful only as a 
symbol. I saw no cultivation except of cereals and 
prickly pear; but the soil is well adapted for fruit- 
trees, and, higher up in the mountains, for vines. 

The Jew who was of our party had been a camp 
follower of the expeditions under Marshal Bugeaud 
in 1844 and 1846, and pointed out to me the scene 
of a feat of the French troops in the former of those 
years, when, by scaling the heights at break of day, 
several Kabyle villages were surprised and destroyed. 
The subjugation of the country was to a great extent 
achieved by Marshal Bugeaud, before his retirement 
to make room for the Duke d'Aumale as Governor- 
General. But on the fall of the Orleans dynasty new 
troubles arose ; and the final submission of the whole 
of Kabylie did not take place till 1857, when the 
Beni-Raten, the tribe which last retained its inde- 
pendence, acknowledged the supremacy of the con- 
querors. A week after this event took place. Colonel 
Lallemont, the commandant at Tizi-Ouzou, adopting 
the policy which had been initiated by Lamoriciere 



]\iARKET OP TIZI-OUZOU. 139 

twenty years before, attended one of the great markets 
of the tribe without arms, and accompanied by only a 
single orderly. Port Napoleon, by which the French 
have clinched the conquest of the country, is built on 
the site of one of these places of gathering, called 
Souk-el-Arba, or simply TArba (Wednesday), from 
the day of the week on which the market is held. It 
is about four leagues to the eastward of Tizi-Ouzou, 
and Dellys is nearly the same distance to the north. 

At Tizi-Ouzou, the market-day is Saturday ; and I 
was fortunate enough to arrive when the crowd was 
the thickest. About half a mile from the fort three 
or four thousand people were collected in a small 
plain, to which the hills slope down on every side, 
backed at a greater distance by others of considerable 
elevation. The greater part of the company were 
Kabyles, distinguishable from the Arabs by rarely 
wearing the bournous, and by being in many instances 
bareheaded and barefooted. On the lower hills was 
picketed a crowd of horses, mules, asses, and camels, 
while the owners transacted their business in the 
plain. In this there appeared a great many tentes 
d/abri, — which the French have adopted from the 
natives, — filled with wares of iron, tin, crockery, 
cotton, and silk. Some were stuffed with people 
lying down for rest after the fatigues of the journey. 
Cattle were standing about for sale, mules lying down, 
often stretched on their sides with their legs tied. 



140 



A ERANK MARABOUT. 



Everybody seemed busy talking and chaffering. In 
the midst, several spahis attached to the Bureau Arabe 
were riding up and down, to keep order, and nip in 
the bud any disturbance. This jurisdiction seems to 
be quite popular with the natives. I saw a group of 
fellows with a mule that had a twisted joint, which 
was obviously an occasion of strife. All shouted with 
one accord " Au bureau ! au bureau ! — probably the 
only French words they knew ; and undoubtedly the 
rough, summary, costless way of administering justice 
by that machinery is a great boon to them. An 
accidental circumstance put me in the position of an 
arbitrator. One man had found a napoleon, and did 
not know what to do with it without consulting some 
European authority. The heat of the sun had induced 
me to roll a white haik round and over my black hat ; 
and I afterwards found that this headdress caused me 
to be regarded as a Erank marabout. Accordingly 
the coin was brought and offered to me, not altogether 
to the satisfaction of a companion of the possessor, 
who when I took it in my hands obviously expected 
me at once to duck under the crowd, and make off 
with the prize. By the help of signs I endeavoured 
to explain to the man the value of the piece of gold, 
and his own right to it ; and I hope my decision was 
not at variance with the Kabyle law of treasure-trove. 
It certainly had one merit in a judgment, — that of 
satisfying the parties concerned. 



MILITARY TENURE OF LAND. 141 

The intense heat had produced the appearance of a 
gathering storm towards the middle of the day, and as 
it grew later, low thunder began to growl among the 
mountains, and clouds to collect about their tops. It 
was plain I must resign the project of going on either 
to Dellys or Fort Napoleon ; which otherwise the 
kindness of Colonel Lallemont would have enabled me 
to achieve, as he at once placed horses and a spahi 
at my disposal. The spahis of Tizi-Ouzou are a body 
which existed in the Turkish times. They hold the 
plain by military service, and were originally composed 
of adventurers from all countries. The French give 
them a red bournous, and when they are actively em- 
ployed a small daily pay ; and their allotments of 
land enable them to maintain themselves in comfort 
and respectability. Here one has an excellent illus- 
tration of the feudal tenures of mediaeval Europe. The 
spahi is in every respect the miles of the Norman con- 
querors of England ; and if the French possession of 
Algeria should be consolidated, the descent of the 
land which is held on this tenure may in time give 
rise to some of the peculiarities which existed in the 
English common law. 

Before leaving Tizi-Ouzou I walked up to the fort to 
take leave of the commandant, and there found my 
German and Russian travelling companions whom I 
had left at the Isser. The former had taken his 
double-barrelled gun out of its case, having arrived in 



142 QUAREELS OE THE KABYLES. 

the country where lie expected it might be useful ; 
and, although I have no doubt the vigorous govern- 
ment of the French enabled him to travel as safely as 
I did myself, the weapon must have proved a terrible 
temptation to the Kabyles, who would perfectly appre- 
ciate its beautiful finish, which was striking even to 
an European. Unfortunately for the comfort of its 
owner, news had just been brought of a disturbance 
in the mountains between two tribes, which necessi- 
tated the interference of the troops, and cost a few 
lives. These, however, were sacrificed (as I heard) in 
the quarrel, not in the means adopted for putting it 
down. The fact is, that the internal government of 
Kabyle tribes is a pure democracy ; and " diffi- 
culties " which arise in the markets or elsewhere, are 
settled very much in the way they are in the more 
remote parts of the United States. 

The Kabyles are at the present time an altogether 
mixed race ; but beyond all doubt the nucleus of this 
is the aboriginal population which the Greeks found 
in Africa nearly three thousand years ago, and which 
were described, as some parts of them are at this day, 
by a name that in a Greek mouth became the word 
" barbarous." In their purest state they exist in the 
Aures mountains near Batna, in the hills above Bona, 
in the mountain region south of Boujie, and in the 
rugged cliffs of the Djerjera ; in fact, in exactly those 
parts of the country which are most inaccessible, and 



THEIR ORIGINAL STOCK. 143 

would afford the best refuge from tlie conquering 
races which one after another have overspread the 
north of Africa. They are also found in some parts 
of the empire of Morocco, and about eight or ten days' 
journey to the south of Maskara, in the western pro- 
vince of Algeria. In these localities the sands of the 
desert would supply the same shelter which was fur- 
nished by the steep mountains of the north. The 
nomads in the plains of Morocco are said to call them- 
selves Berbers, and to give the name of Chulups to 
the stationary inhabitants of the hills belonging to the 
same race ; but in the mountains of Algiers and Tunis 
the name by which they go generically is that of 
Kabyles. They, however, only designate themselves 
by the name of the special tribe to which they belong, 
as the Beni-Raten, the Fhssa, the Beni- Abbes ; just as 
the Scotch highlanders called themselves Campbells or 
Gordons.* Their languages differ to a considerable 
extent, as the dialects of Lancashire and Sussex may 
do, but they all are able to understand one another. 
In those parts of the country where they have been 
brought into a closer contact with other races, both 
the language and the blood is more mixed, the one by 
the adoption of foreign words, f and the other by their 
numbers having been recruited, for a series of genera- 
tions, by refugee slaves from their more powerful 

* The hill-tribes, however, speak of themselves and one another 
as " Temazirght," i. e. " freemen." 

t See the note at the end of this chapter. 



144 THEIR GOVERNMENT. 

neighbours. In proportion as the power of these 
waned, the Kabyles extended their settlements, and 
moved down into the plains about their mountain for- 
tresses, or up into the hill country surrounding the 
desert. Seven or eight centuries ago, a powerful 
confederation of the Kabyle tribes existed, extending 
from Boujie to Algiers, and covering a considerable 
portion of the Metidja. The Hadjoutes, which the 
French on their arrival found to the west of the 
Mazafran, are also a Kabyle tribe. The characteristics 
of the race very much resemble those of the Swiss. 
They are brave, hardy, vindictive, utterly fearless of 
death, and above all things jealous of their indepen- 
dence. When they go to war, every man capable of 
bearing arms appears in the field. On any special 
emergency each village assembles and elects a repre- 
sentative, and the aggregate of these select a chief for 
the command of the whole tribe ; but the authority of 
this functionary ceases as soon as the occasion for his 
services is past ; and even before that time arrives, if 
his conduct should not give satisfaction, his con- 
stituents meet together and at once depose him. Por 
ordinary purposes they submit implicitly to the autho- 
rity of their marabouts, for whom their respect is 
unbounded. They are Mahometans, but it is only the 
marabouts who can read Arabic, and their instruction 
is derived from the oral teaching of these. All the 
words in their language which relate to religion, and 



THEIR PERSONAL CHARACTER. 145 



almost all to the arts of life, are of Arabic origin. 
The women generally go unveiled, and the men bare- 
headed ; but neither of these customs is universal. 
They are extremely frugal and industrious. It is a 
common thing for a Kabyle to hire himself out as a 
labourer in the towns, and after several years to return 
to his native mountains with the produce of his earn- 
ings. If he can get sufficient to procure a wife, a hut, 
a gun, a yataghan, a spade, an iron pot, a hand-mill, 
and a dog, he is quite content. If in addition he 
acquires a plough with draught oxen, and if his house 
is built of stone, he is regarded as a man of fortune. 
Many of the Kabyles, like the Swiss, adopt the pro- 
fession of mercenary soldiers. A great number of 
them were in the service of the Emperor of Morocco, 
and at the time of the Prench invasion many were 
perfectly ready to take service under them against the 
Arabs, for whom they entertain great contempt. The 
Zouaves — a name familiar in English mouths — 
although now without exception Europeans, were 
in their origin a force raised from one of these 
tribes, the Zouaoua,* which had never submitted to the 

* The Zouaoua, who lie between the Fhssa and the Beni- Abbes, 
were at one time the centre of a kingdom (Koukou). In the time 
of Herodotus they must have given their name to a large district, for 
it is doubtless these whom he means by the Zauekes (iv. 193), The 
last part of this word is a Kabyle root meaning " territory," so that 
Zauekes means " the inhabitants of the Zouagha, or Zoua's land," 
and is formed by the same sort of false analogy that produced the 
name " Penshurst Wood," The Buzantes (as it should be written : 
see Stephanus Byzantinus, suh voce), whom he joins with them, 

L 



146 FRENCH TROOPS IN BIVOUACK. 

Algerine domination, and readily joined the invaders 
against the common enemy. 

I had intended to set off very early in the morning 
from Tizi-Ouzou to avoid the heat of the weather ; but 
owing to some misunderstanding, the horses were not 
brought until half-past eight. But I was well mounted 
on an excellent Arab horse belonging to a spahi, and 
by four o'clock in the afternoon I reached the caravan- 
serai at the Isser (where I proposed to pass the night) 
with far less fatigue than had resulted from only two- 
thirds of the distance the day before on my sluggish 
mule. Between the valley of the Sebaou and Zib 
Zamoun, where I stopped an hour to breakfast, I met 
a battalion of French soldiers forming part of a force 
to be employed in improving the roads of Kabylie 
and draining some marshes. The condition of the 
route was very bad where I encountered them, and 
great was the disgust apparent on every face. What 
they were coming to, however, was much worse. On 
arriving at the Isser, I found three battalions more 
encamped, and at Boudouaou, the next day, two more 
following them. The appearance of the camp at the 
Isser was very lively ; and the men had all made 
themselves comfortable, and seemed full of good- 
humour. The tents were all pitched, and cooking 

are "the men of Bujie or Buzie." In 1833 tlie Kabyles in the 
mountains roimd about this place could bring 20,000 armed men 
into the field. The Beni-Abbes, like the Chaldeans of Kurdistan, 
were manufacturers of arms. The town of Kala (which was their 
fortress) is only five or six leagues from the Biban or Iron Gates. 



THEIR ORDEH AND HELPFULNESS. 147 

was going on in messes. Several of the soldiers were 
fishing in the river, others bathing or washing their 
shirts. I saw no drunkenness or disorder of any- 
kind, either in the camp or .the neighbourhood, and 
was everywhere treated with civility. While strolling 
by the bank of the river, I came suddenly on the 
carcase of a horse out of which several pieces had 
been cut. This was, probably, a sumpter animal, 
killed by an accident. The French soldiers in Africa 
eat, without the slightest hesitation, the flesh of any 
horse or mule which is so killed. On their expedi- 
tions into the interior, the commissariat does not 
profess to carry any other food than biscuit for them, 
and they get no meat but what can be procured 
on the spot, or is the result of accidents. My 
informant told me that, in the Kabylie expedition of 
1857, a mule happened to fall from a precipice, and 
in a quarter of an hour's time not a hoof was left. 
His own cook served him up some of the carcase as 
Iamb ; and the only fault he found with the dish was 
that it was too fat. The allowance of the soldier is 
three biscuits a day; and on some expeditions he is 
compelled to carry rations for six or seven days in 
addition to his arms and accoutrements. On one 
occasion, my informant told me, he had known 
biscuits for eleven days carried by each man. This 
is, I fancy, more than is done in any other army of 
modern times; but yet the Roman legionary would 

L 2 



148 ADMIRABLE DISCIPLINE 

have thought it a Hght weight compared with that on 
his own shoulders. 

The discipline of the French regiments which have 
been for some time in Africa is, apparently, all that 
can be desired. The Zouaves are especially remark- 
able in this respect. They are an extremely fine body 
of men, at least equal in point of physique to our 
foot-guards, and far superior to them as regards 
education and habits of life. During the whole of my 
stay in Algeria, I never saw a Zouave either intoxi- 
cated or engaged in any discreditable act. The 
regiments of the line are, in every respect, much 
inferior. It is the practice to take one of these out 
every fine day upon a promenade militaire, to accustom 
them gradually to the exigencies of war. They pro- 
ceed to some distance, as if on actual service, pitch 
their tents, cut wood and cook their rations, and 
return to barracks in the afternoon. But although 
the object is to rehearse the incidents of a campaign 
in the presence of the enemy, and the semblance of 
war is kept up even to leading spare sumpter mules 
with the troops, habits of slovenliness have been 
allowed to creep into the system. One day I came 
upon a battalion just marching out of Algiers, and 
determined to accompany them. Everything went on 
en regie while we were in the neighbourhood of the 
town; but immediately after this, bayonets were 
unfixed and swords sheathed, the officer commanding 



OE A PAUT OF THE ARMY. 149 

the advanced guard quitted his men and took a short 
cut across the common under Mustapha, and the men 
carried their muskets in any way that most suited 
their ideas of comfort. On arriving at the Jardin 
d'Essai, a halt for a quarter of an hour took place, and 
the officer again quitted his men to have a chat and 
a cup of coffee in the cafe opposite. I availed myself 
of the opportunity to feel the weight of one of the 
knapsacks ; but the owner informed me, with a smile, 
that on actual service it would weigh twice as much, 
for that on these occasions they made it as light as 
possible. The ammunition boxes on the mules were, 
if I might judge from the sound as they shook, 
similarly emptied. This regiment might, possibly, have 
recently arrived from France, and be an exception to 
the ordinary rule ; but it certainly made an indifferent 
figure. The road was excessively muddy, and the 
men expressed their annoyance very generally, although 
in a good-humoured way. Probably a good deal of 
tact is required in bringing new arrivals up to the 
proper standard of efficiency. 

Military punishments are extremely common. 
Scarcely a week takes place without something of the 
kind. One day I was a spectator of the expulsion 
of a soldier from the army. He was placed in the 
centre of the Place lloyale, around which several 
companies were drawn up. The commanding officer 
read aloud a paper containing his sentence and the 



150 MILITARY PUNISHMENT. 

grounds of it. A musket was then put into his hands, 
and he went through the manual exercise backwards, 
after which the piece was lowered from his shoulders 
to the ground, and he was compelled to step over it. 
The military buttons w^ere then cut from his dress, 
and, no longer a soldier, he was made over to the 
civil power for the further punishment of seven years' 
hard labour. This man's offence had been disorderly 
conduct in one of the natives' houses, and resistance 
to the authorities who were called in to put a stop to 
it ; in the course of which he struck his commanding 
officer. He had been in a military prison for two 
years before, and was just discharged when he com- 
mitted the offence which led to his further punish- 
ment. 



Note to Page 143. 

The following considerations induce me to believe that the 
language now spoken by the Kabyles is substantially the same as 
that which prevailed in the north of Africa more than two thousand 
years ago ; a language bearing, probably, about the same relation to 
that of an educated Carthaginian, as the spoken dialect of the Saxon 
boors in the reign of Edward III. might to the written language of 
WicHf:— 

1. St. Augustine, on an occasion of explaining the word "Messias," 
remarks that the Punic word ^^Messe" is equivalent to the Latin 
" ungue." {Trad. 15, in Jolan. JEvang. c. iv. § 27.) The student is 
naturally surprised that, in employing such an illustration, Augustine 
should have selected an imperative mood. But, in fact, the impera- 
tive mood is in the Kabyle language the o^oot of the verb, all other 
forms of which are moulded upon this one. It seems an obvious 
inference that the same remarkable peculiarity existed in the 
language that Augustine calls " Punic." 

2. But the "Punic" of Augustine is "the only language besides 



NOTE ON KABYLE LANGUAGE. 151 

Latin in use in the parts where the Donatist tenets found support." 
{Tract. 2, in Hp. JoJian. § 3.) It must, therefore, be the common 
African, the popular language of his time, not any dialect which 
may be supposed to have been employed by literary Carthaginians 
and to have become obsolete upon the destruction of the Cartha- 
ginian State. And it was the language of the country, not of the 
townspeople ; for, if spoken in the towns, Augustine's congregation 
would not have been so entirely ignorant of it as he assumes them 
to be. (See Opp. vol. iv. p. 1234, ed. Ven.) It is, therefore, the 
language of the hillsmcD, of the inhabitants of those chains of moun- 
tains which run along the coast westward from Hippo (Bona) to the 
neighbourhood of Cape Matifou, — a region which at this day is 
occupied exclusively by Kabyles. 

3. In the extent of coast just mentioned, the Antonine Itinerary 
and Ptolemy give the following towns, — Eusicada (on the site of 
Philippeville), whose name still may be traced in the modern Skikda, 
Eusazus, Eusubeser, Eusuccurus or Eusicurium, Eusicibar or 
Eusubbicari, and Eusgunium. In all these manifestly native names 
the first syllable is a Kabyle word, which in its various forms of 
Eus, Eas, Eos, or Eis, signifies "head" or "cape." 

4. The name by which the natives of North Africa caUed their 
gourbis, a century before Christ, was " magalia," which Bochart has 
shown is merely a corruption of the genuine Punic word " magaria," 
the weU-known name of one quarter of Carthage. But " magalia" 
still survives in the Kabyle phrase "T mehalla" (a camp). 

5. The Kabyles of the present day use one and the same word 
indifierently to denote an European and a Christian. This word is 
Iroumi, which is obviously derived from Roma, and, consequently, 
must have been adopted in the times when to be a Eoman and 
a Christian were nearly convertible terms. This would be the case 
in the time of Augustine, when the Christian Churches in Africa 
were composed almost exclusively of the Eoman population in the 
towns on the coast and the commercial routes. 

6. Herodotus relates a story of one of the chiefs of Cyrene, to 
whom a strange oracle was given in figurative terms. In the event 
of his pursuing a certain policy he is menaced with death, in which 
he will have for a partner "the surpassing bull " (ravpos 6 KotCKia-T^vaiv). 
He did not take the warning, and he paid the penalty of his rashness 
in being assassinated, together with his father-in-law Alazir, by the 
people of Barca, of which place Alazir was king. The modern 
Kabyle language explains the oracle, which the father of history has 
left in obscurity. In it the word "ezghir" signifies "a buU," and 
this, with the prefix of the definite article, "Tezghir," is at once 
recognised as the name of the Barcaan chief, gh being merely the 
strong aspirate. 



THE WESTERN PROVINCE. 



CHAPTER VIL 

At the beginning of March, there being every 
appearance of the winter rains having passed over, 
I determined to proceed by sea to Oran, the seat of 
government of the Western Province of Algeria, with 
the intention of devoting a fortnight to visiting the 
most remarkable localities in the neighbourhood, after 
which the season would be sufficiently advanced to 
allow of my going to the high plateaux of the Central 
and Eastern Provinces without prejudice to the main 
object of my sojourn in Africa. The Government 
steamers run every ten days between Algiers and 
Oran ; but the chance of a berth in these is very 
uncertain, for they are, in fact, intended merely 
for the postal service of the littoral, between the 
two extremities Oran and Bona, and the little cabin 
accommodation they possess is liable to be forestalled 
for the use of the military staff. It is impossible 
to take a berth beforehand ; and when the boat 
arrives, there is a rush, it may be at five and six 
o'clock in the morning, to secure such places as are 



COASTING VOYAGE. 153 

to be had. But there is a private company, whose 
vessels every twenty-four or twenty-five days run 
between Marseilles and Malta, crossing from the 
former to Oran, and thence making a coasting voyage 
as far as Tunis, from which port they stand across to 
the other extremity of their course. In one of them, 
the Vincent, I was fortunate enough to obtain a berth 
immediately after being disappointed of one in the 
Government steamer; and on the night of the 2d 
of March we left the harbour of Algiers with a bright 
moon but a contrary wind. The barometer fell very 
much on the 1st, and the Vincent was kept back twelve 
hours on account of the strength of the wind which 
followed this indication. But at sunset on the 2d 
there seemed to be a lull, and at 11 p.m. we put 
to sea in hopes that the gale was over. The ex- 
pectation was not realized, and after proceeding 
between forty and fifty miles, we were compelled to 
turn about, and seek for shelter once more in the 
harbour of Algiers. At the time of turning (about 
7 A.M. on the 3d) we were nearly abreast of 
Cherchell ; and although the west wind had become 
insuperable, the weather was beautifully clear, and 
we returned, except when stretching across a bay, 
at a distance of not more than three or four miles 
from the shore. Not suffering from sea-sickness, 
I rather rejoiced at our mischance, as it enabled me 
to examine at my leisure the whole of the coast 



154 VIEW OP COAST. 

between Cherchell and Algiers, although the rough- 
ness of the sea frustrated all attempts at the very 
rudest outline. The two chief objects were the 
" Tombeau de la Heine," and the peninsula of Sidi 
Ferudje. It was the first sight I had had of the 
former, and it instantly arrested my attention. The 
captain of the steamer averred that it was a natural 
mound ; but it is really built of cut stone, as I learnt 
from the superintendent of the Museum at Algiers, 
M. Berbrugger, who had visited it and made some 
excavations. From the sea, it seems to stand on 
the highest point of the Sahel, as on a pedestal, 
backed by the Atlas mountains in the distance, the 
lake of Aloula and the plain of the Metidja lying 
between the two ranges. 

On the 4th of March we made another trial to get 
westward, and leaving Algiers at eight o'clock in the 
morning, were off Cape Tenez just about sunset, with 
the finest weather, although the wind still headed us. 
Between the Ras el Ammouch (the cape just to the 
east of Cherchell) and Cape Tenez the coast forms a 
bay of the greatest beauty, the hills coming down 
quite into the sea, very like the mountains of Cum- 
berland both in size and shape. Behind them, every 
now and then, one catches a sight of the Atlas in 
some of its highest parts near about Milianah. Just 
after passing the Ras el Ammouch (which is the 
termination of a magnificent mountain, a sort of 



HARBOUELESS SEA. 



155 



outlying mass of the Atlas range, to which it is 
joined by a lower col covered with fine timber), the 
remains of a Roman aqueduct appear. This supplied 
Julia Csesarea, of which Cherchell is the modern repre- 
sentative, with water. But east of the cape are other 
ruins ; and it is there that I am inclined to believe 
the old Mauritanian town, lol, formerly stood. The 
" Tombeau de la Reine" obviously connects itself 
with these ruins as they are seen from the sea ; and 
the eastern, not the western, side of the cape is the 
place where shelter would be sought by the trading 
vessels of the ancients from the prevalent wind in 
this part of the Mediterranean. Indeed, this 'place 
and the bay of Arzew, which is similarly situated, are 
the only roads in which vessels can find shelter in the 
whole line of coast between Oran and Philippeville.* 
The sea which washes the shore of northern Africa well 
deserves its ancient epithet of " harbour-less but the 
captain of the steamer told me that, if again forced 
back, he could lie under the lee of Ras el Ammouch, 

* The harbour of Algiers is of course no real exception, being 
formed by artificial breakwaters. The port at Julia Caesarea was 
also an artificial one, — an excavation like those at Carthage and some 
other places on the coast of North Africa. To these the ancients 
gave the name of Cothon. That of Caesarea must always have been 
very difficult to make ; and I apprehend that the trading vessels of 
the Roman empire made use of the roads of lol for temporary shelter, 
and then during fine weather moved into the Cothon to discharge 
their cargoes. The same kind of thing takes place now at Oran. 
Vessels habitually He in the roads of Mers-el-Kebir, where they are 
safe from all winds but one ; and when the weather permits, are 
brought from thence into the harbour of Oran. 



156 VIEW OE CHEECHELL. 

and would do so. The modern Chercliell contains 
but very few houses within the walls (so far as the 
view from the sea may be trusted) ; but there is a 
large building, which I was informed was a military 
hospital, and in the neighbourhood are two camps, 
built so as to command the country and keep the 
neighbouring Kabyles in awe. These people have 
cleared and tilled a good many spots in the high 
mountain which terminates in the cape, as well as 
in the others to the south. A road from Chercheli, 
practicable for wheeled carriages in the summer only, 
runs through the forest of timber-trees spoken of 
abovd, and after passing through Marengo, a fever- 
stricken French village created in 1848, proceeds to 
join the route which unites Blidah with Mihana. 
From Marengo it is possible to pass direct to Algiers ; 
but as far as Koleah the traveller must go on horse- 
back, although on arriving at the latter place he will 
find one of the best roads in Algeria, and a daily 
dihgence to Algiers. Koleah is not seen from the 
sea, because it is on the southern incline of the Sahel; 
but it is not very far removed from it. It is nearly 
abreast of the steamers when they are half-way 
between the promontory of Sidi Ferudje and the 
Tombeau de la Reine. There is a strong military 
force there in fortified barracks ; and the town, 
although an Arab one originally, has been so meta- 
morphosed by the French, who have taken possession 



ITS CAPTURE BY THE FRENCH. 157 

of it, and cut sasli- windows in the houses, that it is 
difficult to imagine that it was recently a place 
esteemed sacred by the natives. Such, however, is 
the case; and even yet the tomb of the marabout, 
whose reputation made the place illustrious, is, in 
deference to the feelings of the natives, closed against 
all Christians, although the mosque which was built 
by its side has been converted into a military 
hospital. 

The Kabyles in the neighbourhood of Cherchell 
gave the French a good deal of trouble in the first 
eighteen years of the occupation ; and the camp at 
Koleah was, in fact, intended to secure the settlers in 
the Metidja against incursions from this quarter. 
Cherchell itself was not occupied in force until the 
outbreak of the war with Abd-el-Kader in 1839. 
The French met with no resistance in entering the 
town ; but it was entirely deserted by its inhabitants, 
and they found no human being within the walls, 
except a blind beggar and a dwarf idiot. But the 
mountaineers, especially the Beni-Menasser, maintained 
a perpetual warfare with the garrison until the year 
1842, when the vigorous efforts of Marshal Bugeaud 
and General Changarnier succeeded to a great measure 
in breaking their spirit, and the ruin of Abd-el-Kader 
completed their submission. 

Tenez, which is considered half-way between Algiers 
and Oran, lies a little to the w^estward of the cape. 



J 58 TENEZ. 

It occupies the site of the ancient Cartenna, a Roman 
colony, and the quarters of the second legion. A 
small town nearly a mile from it was the capital 
of one of the petty kingdoms which succeeded to the 
break-up of the Arab domination. The object of the 
Romans in estabHshing a colony there probably was 
to obtain the produce of the copper and iron mines 
which exist a few miles off. The first part of the 
name Cartenna, like that of Carthage and Cirta, 
implies a fort, and the last seems connected with 
the root of " Teniat," a pass ; and some of the 
Prench antiquaries of Algeria believe they have found 
the foundations of a tower on a hill commanding a 
defile in the immediate neighbourhood. The steamer 
carrying the mails between Algiers and Oran touches 
at Tenez, but the approach is considered very dan- 
gerous. An artificial harbour is projected ; but it is 
not likely to be executed before the Greek Kalends. 

At sunset on the 4th the breeze had abated, and we 
had every hope of arriving at Oran by nine or ten 
o'clock the next morning. But soon afterwards the 
west wind again resumed its force, and about four in 
the morning became a perfect storm ; so that when I 
came on deck at seven o'clock on the morning of the 
5th, I found that very little progress had been made. 
As the day advanced the wind abated, but until late 
in the afternoon we never made more than four knots. 
The weather, however, was very fine ; and as the coast 



COAST OF THE DAHEA. 



159 



trends greatly to the southwards, we were able to make 
some sail and steady the vessel. After coming abreast 
of a place called on the maps Point Magroua,*' the high 
hills, — which had from the time of passing Cherchell 
come down into the sea, leaving occasionally narrow 
plains, but more generally steep cliffs scarcely permitting 
a track to be made along them, — receded from the shore 
and diminished very much in altitude. The coast began 
to present tjie appearance of a plateau of sandstone (with 
what looked like limestone over it in some places), 
and was occasionally so low and so loose in texture as 
to remind one of the crag of the Norfolk coast. Its 
colour varies from the white of driving sand f to the 
reddish colour which predominates in the neighbour- 
hood of Algiers. Here and there it is cut by small 
rivers, and in one place by a very considerable one — 

* Magroua is an alternative of the more common name Dahra, given 
to the country between the sea and the river Chehff. Its inhabitants 
are almost all of Kabyle race ; they are brave and industrious, and 
at one time exported corn and wax at a few places on the seaboard. 

f This is also conspicuous at a place called Rurnmel-el-Abiad 
(white sand), just to the east of Point Magroua, one of the places 
where in the time of Shaw European merchants used to trade with 
the native tribes of the Dahra. Khelat-el-Shimmah (the lighthouse) 
is another observable point. Shaw says that about here is the 
Djibel Meniss, a mountain of salt. He puts Khelat-el-Shimmah at 
nine leagues from the embouchure of the Cheliff, I took it (or the 
building which I supposed to be it) for considerably less. But the 
circumstances under which I saw it exclude all pretence to exact- 
ness. I may observe, however, that Shaw in this part of his book is 
far from exact. He errs palpably, for instance, in identifying the 
Cartili of the Itinerary with any one of the places on the coast of the 
Dahra ; for whatever it was, it was to the east of Tenez, and lay 
between it and Cherchell, Khelat-el-Shimmah is to the west 
of Magroua, not, as Shaw makes it, to the east. 



160 AERIVAL AT ORAN. 

the Cheliff — the largest river in Algeria. After passing 
this, we stretched across the bay of Arzew, seeing 
Mostaganem in the distance just before sunset ; and as 
we approached the high hills which again show them- 
selves at the western extremity of the bay, the lights 
of Arzew appeared in the angle on the left hand. It 
was perfectly calm as we rounded Cape Ferratt, at a 
distance, so far as I could judge, of about three miles ; 
but the moon had not risen, and I very much grudged 
the loss of the scene, — a feeling which a view of it 
from the shore of the bay by daylight some days after- 
wards did not tend to diminish. However, before 
light the next morning we arrived safe in Mers-el- 
Kebir (the Great Port), and having taken a pilot on 
board, entered the harbour of Oran at eight o'clock, 
where our long narrow steamer looked like a great 
pike in a cistern of water. I landed, and found 
tolerable quarters at the Hotel de I'Univers, and an 
establishment of warm baths in the immediate vicinity. 
My tossing on board the steamer had produced no 
feeling of discomfort ; I had lost, apparently, all trace 
of illness, and I looked forward with intense interest 
to the prospect of visiting a country where, for a cen- 
tury before its conquest by the Prench, travelling had 
been an impossibility for an European. 

Oran itself has been entirely rebuilt by the French. 
It occupies the two sides of a ravine, through the 
bottom of which flows a brook which turns several 



ITS ACQUISITION BY ERANCE. 161 

mills, and furnishes the means of irrigation to an 
immense number of gardens. The Spaniards had 
been masters of the old town with some interruption 
for three centuries, when in 1791 an earthquake 
destroyed the greater part of it, and the Bey of Mas- 
kara, taking advantage of the circumstance, succeeded 
in making himself master of it. The seat of govern- 
ment of the western province had until this time been 
Maskara, but it was now transferred to Oran ; and 
this circumstance, occurring as it did nearly forty 
years before the Trench invasion of Africa, contributed 
by the strangest of chances more than almost anything 
else to secure the possession of Algeria to them. If 
Oran had remained Spanish, it would probably have 
been impossible to crush Abd-el-Kader. Its acquisi- 
tion by the Prench was a matter almost of haphazard. 
The success of Bourmont in capturing Algiers had 
taken every one by surprise. The Turkish power fell, 
and with its fall the bands of imperial government 
were everywhere snapped asunder throughout Algeria. 
In this state of things Bourmont sent his son to 
Oran to receive the submission of the Bey of that 
province to Erance as his feudal sovereign. More 
than this was neither expected nor desired, for it was 
in the highest degree uncertain whether the attitude 
which the conquerors occupied would be maintained 
by the Home Government. The Bey of Oran, how- 
ever, an old man fond of money, and hating trouble 

M 



162 UNCERTAIN POLICY 

and whatever promised to produce trouble, not only 
professed his submission, but expressed the greatest 
anxiety to receive a French garrison into the town, and 
himself retire to Asia to end his days in the enjoyment 
of the wealth he had amassed. In the meantime, 
while the discussion between him and Captain Bour- 
mont was going on, a French officer named Le Blanc, 
who commanded a brig of war lying in the roads, took 
advantage of the casual arrival of two other vessels, 
collected a hundred marines, landed them, and marched 
up into the fort of Mers-el-Kebir, the Turkish garrison 
not offering the least resistance. In the confusion 
which followed the Paris revolution of July, 1830, all 
orders for the administration of Algeria were sure to 
be soon countermanded ; and at the very time when 
some troops and guns, which had been sent by Bour- 
mont with a view of following up the bold poHcy 
thus irregularly initiated, were being landed at 
Oran, a fresh mandate enjoined the abandonment 
of the place. Some companies which had been 
landed returned to the transports in the very boats 
which brought them; the sea-front of the fort was 
blown up, and the French left. Before they did so, 
they offered to remove the old Bey Hassan, as he had 
originally desired. But when this wish had been 
expressed, he was actually besieged by the Arabs, who, 
finding that the yoke of their Turkish masters had 
been shrewdly shaken, took the opportunity of endea- 



OE THE GOVERNMENT. 163 

vouring to get rid of it altogether. They possibly had 
their eyes opened to the fact that their restlessness 
would bring about the dominion of the French in the 
place of that of their co-religionists ; for when Hassan 
was informed by his new friends that they were willing 
to convey him to Asia, he thanked them, but said that 
he would remain where he was in the confidence of 
being able to regain the allegiance of his subjects, and 
that in doing so he still considered himself the vassal 
of France. This loose tie, a bargain as it were on one 
side only, sufficed to maintain the connexion of the 
French with the western province until the course of 
events showed the necessity of strengthening it. 

It is only the knowledge how entirely the whole 
administration of the North African possessions was 
for the first fifteen or twenty years swayed by external 
circumstances, that can restrain one's indignation at 
the way in which money has been frittered away in 
public works. The harbour of Oran is an instance of 
the most flagrant kind. It is formed by a jetty — for 
really it is unworthy of the name of a pier — run 
out into the sea, and originally such a structure as 
ministers to the wants of a few fishing-boats in some 
of the villages on the English coast. Only five miles 
off is the magnificent Mers-el-Kebir, large enough to 
contain all the navy of France, and overhung by a rock 
which is almost another ^Gibraltar. But even granting 
the necessity — which doubtless existed — of making 

M 2 



164 



EVIL OE CONCESSIONS. 



some arrangement for landing troops and stores 
exactly at Oran, there is a projecting rock not a 
hundred yards from the commencement of the existing 
pier, which indicates, as plainly as if the advice were 
carved in letters upon it, the point from which a 
breakwater for any future harbour, to be effectual, 
must necessarily be carried. It is not difficult to see 
the course which things have almost everywhere taken 
in this ill-managed dependency. To meet some special 
conjuncture, a make-shift has been contrived. Further 
necessities have arisen; and to meet these without 
sacrificing what existed, some roundabout course has 
been suggested and carried out, generally through the 
machinery of a " concession " of some sort. It is just 
as if a settler in a new country were not only to begin 
by running up a shed to shelter himself from the 
weather, but resolutely to maintain the shed in all its 
integrity when he grew rich, building up his house bit 
by bit around it, making the dining-room an adjunct 
of the kitchen, and the best bedroom an appendix of 
the hayloft. 

In the existing town of Oran, the great bulk of the 
population consists of Spaniards and African Jews. 
There are comparatively few Moors. Such as there 
are live mostly in the relics of the old town which 
remain scattered round about the existing enceinte. 
The Jewesses are as frightful as those of Algiers, and 
the Moorish women as frightful as the Jewesses. The 



POPULATION OF ORAN. 165 

opportunity of criticism is liere more common ; for the 
Mauresques of Oran, instead of covering the face up 
to the eyes from below with a haik, and letting a veil 
fall down to the eyebrows from above, wear no haik, 
but hold their veils about the wholT^ their faces with 
their hands, letting only a single eye appear. This 
normal appearance, however, involves for its preserva- 
tion some fatigue and much attention ; and it is sacri- 
ficed almost as often as not to the impulses of laziness, 
curiosity, or vanity. Neither are the trousers of Algiers 
here worn. In their place are long petticoats; and 
instead of the small Moorish shoe a boot of yellow 
leather, reaching up only to the ankles, which are sur- 
rounded with massive metallic bangles. I saw while 
in Oran a few of the Berber women — the Kabyles of 
Morocco. They tattoo themselves on the forehead, chin, 
and cheeks, and have very much the appearance of 
gipsies. They go unveiled, and have no scruple about 
the presence of men, which the Arab women always 
have, although less so where the tribes have been 
brought into close contact with the French, which is 
particularly the case in the neighbourhood of Oran. 

One of the most magnificent views in the whole of 
Algeria is gained by ascending the hills on the west 
of the town, to a point which is marked out by a 
ruined marabout conspicuous from below. It cannot 
be less than from 1,500 to 2,000 feet above the sea- 
level ; and from it the whole of the neighbourhood 



166 GEOLOGICAL CHAKACTER OF 

may be seen as in a map. The most prominent 
object is the mountainous promontory which separates 
the Bay of Oran from that of Arzew, terminating 
in Cape Ferratt. Out of the middle of this rises 
a hill, with a double crest like Parnassus, called the 
Mountain of Lions, from the former abundance of 
those animals in the locality. They are, however, 
now so scarce, that the fact of one being killed there 
three years ago was remarked as matter of wonder. 
The Mount of Lions is more than 5,000 feet in 
height, and is covered with the usual brushwood of the 
littoral of Algeria, as I had the opportunity of observing 
in crossing the flanks of it on my way from Arzew 
some days afterwards. Indeed, the high ground 
which surrounds Oran from Cape Ferratt to some 
distance to the west of Mers-el-Kebir is, in a geolo- 
gical point of view, exactly analogous to the Sahel 
of Algiers. It is composed of the same sandstone 
(more compressed, however, by volcanic action), and 
clothed with the same plants. Like the Sahel, too, 
its inclination to the south is very gentle, and 
it slopes into an extensive plain corresponding to 
the Metidja of the central province. But while 
the waters of the Metidja do, with the exception 
of Lake Aloula, find their way ultimately into the 
sea, the drainage of the plain of Oran — if one may 
give a collective name to the lowlands intercepted 
between the high coast and the Atlas range — accu- 



THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OE ORAN. 167 

mulates in large shallow lakes called Sebkahs, more 
or less impregnated with salt. The largest of these, 
a few miles from Oran, extends over a great surface. 
At the time I saw it, it was about seven miles across 
at its broadest part, and not less than thirty in length. 
Another, in the neighbourhood of Arzew, is of a smaller 
size, but much richer in its yield of salt. This is 
simply collected from the banks as the water evaporates 
in the summer-time. Beyond the lake of Oran, the 
extreme visible point of which bears south-west of the 
marabout above-mentioned, are the hills which form 
the feet of the Atlas, — one part of the rim of that 
great irregular inland basin, of which the Sebkahs 
constitute the bottom and the high cliffs from Cape 
Ferratt to Cape Fegalo the seaward edge. The southern 
part of this tract, towards the Sebkah of Arzew, is 
occupied by the Abid-Gharabas, a tribe of Arab nomads 
partly inhabiting the valley of the Sig, and partly the 
mountains above it. Near the Sebkah of Oran, and 
from thence nearly as far as Maskara on the south-east 
and Tlem9en on the south-west, spreads the Kabyle 
tribe of the Beni-Amer, which is subdivided into 
thirteen cantons. In the northern part of the basin, 
between the sea and the Sebkah of Oran, are the 
tents of the Douair and the Turkish military colonies 
of the Zmela. These last have, to a considerable 
extent, given way to European settlers; but twenty 
years ago the whole of the country was covered with 



168 RESEMBLANCE TO THE SAHEL. 

the ordinary growth of Algerian wastes, such as dwarf 
palm, lentisque, and asphodel. Now, for six or seven 
miles around Oran, it is well cleared, and much culti- 
vation is carried on. Almost as far as the Sebkah 
the landscape appears spotted with farms, which 
I was told were chiefly French ; but my informant at 
the same time owned that the actual labourers were 
mostly Spaniards and Maltese, especially the former. 

From the marabout which commands the view just 
described, it is easy to gain the summit of the plateau, 
which the traveller may follow for several miles before 
he will arrive at its western extremity. Everywhere 
towards the sea he will find the descent more or less 
precipitous, while in the opposite direction there is 
uniformly a gentle slope towards the great Sebkah. 
On the very top of the plateau the surface is generally 
laid bare by the heavy rains, and there appear large 
blocks of limestone, or flat surfaces of the same, 
devoid of vegetation or moisture. Two or three 
flocks of goats, attended by Spanish herdsmen, haunt 
this part, and pick up a subsistence from the grass 
which shoots up in the clefts. The more sloping 
parts are better covered. The dwarf palm, the 
asphodel, and the wild lavender soon appear ; and at 
a little distance below the highest level, the Flora of 
the Sahel of Algiers is reproduced in every particular. 
Here and there a small space has been cleared, and 
sown with corn ; but this is very rare and the produce 



. LIEE ON THE BORDERS. 169 

extremely scanty ; while the broad-leaved lily showing 
itself thick in the midst of the crop, proves that the 
surface has been merely scratched, probably by hand- 
labour. 

The Kasbah, or citadel of the old Oran, lies on the 
western side of the ravine which divides the town. 
It suffered greatly from the earthquake of 1791, and 
is now only used as a barrack for some tirailleurs 
indigenes. The military head-quarters are in the 
Chateau Neuf, situated on the heights of the eastern 
side. I had brought letters to General Martimprey, 
the commander of the forces, and also to Colonel 
Rensen, the chief of the staff of the western province, 
two officers whose scientific as well as military repu- 
tation will be well known to many of their late British 
comrades in the Crimea; and I walked up to the 
General's quarters to deliver them. The proximity of 
the Morocco frontier causes this command, and that 
of Tlemcen which is subordinated to it, to be one of 
great anxiety ; and almost every hour military couriers 
arrive bringing despatches which require immediate 
attention from relating to those sort of matters which 
somebody has well described as being trifles — 
except you neglect them." It was the first time 
I had seen realized the habits of a border life ; and 
I remembered Sir Walter Scott's description of 
Branksome Hall when I saw eight or ten spahis, with 
their horses, all ready to start at an instant's notice. 



170 HOSPITALITY OF FRENCH OFEICERS. 

waiting outside the office of the chief of the staff. 
The pressure of business, however, was no hindrance 
to my receiving the most courteous attention from this 
gentleman, who during my stay at Oran made me 
feel that hospitality is not exclusively the characteristic 
of Englishmen, and his kindness and that of his chief 
put me in the way of seeing much more of the 
interior than would otherwise have been possible 
in the limited time I could command. 

My wish was to go first to Tlem^en, and from thence 
cross the interior to Maskara, by a route which passes 
through Sidi Bel Abbes, — a town not remarkable 
in any other respect but interesting as being the 
centre of the native commerce in this part of Africa. 
From Maskara I hoped to obtain means of going 
direct to Mostaganem, and from thence returning to 
Oran by the old town of Arzew — the Arsenaria of 
the Roman empire. The importance of Tlemgen, 
Maskara, and Mostaganem, as military posts, espe- 
cially of the two former, has caused the connexion of 
each with the centre of government at Oran by a 
"route carrossable ; " but they can only be reached 
from one another on horseback, and the condition of 
the country is such that an escort, if not absolutely 
necessary, is at any rate desirable. 

The road to Tlem^en, however, although in the 
summer-time it is traversed by wheels, is reputed to 
be the very worst in the whole of Algeria that enjoys 



JOURNEY TO TLEMQEN. 171 

that distinction. I set out upon it at three o'clock in 
the morning in the malle-jpost, which is built specially 
for the purpose, like one that goes (or used five-and- 
twenty years back to go) over the Simplon. It is 
very low, without a perch, and no passenger is allowed 
more than ten kilogrammes (about twenty-five pounds) 
of luggage, at any price. There is scarcely room for 
four inside; but nevertheless six were squeezed in, 
of whom one luckily was a child. Off we set as the 
clock struck three, by the light of the moon as well 
as that of our own lamps. The first part of the road 
skirts the plain as far as Miserghin, the site of a 
former country palace of the Bey of Oran, and then 
descending into it passes along the western shore of 
the great Sebkah. It is impossible to conceive any- 
thing more dreary than the appearance of the country 
in this part. Only a very few spots are cleared here 
and there, and all the rest is bush. The soil at the 
edges of the plain has the same resemblance to that of 
the New Forest which has been remarked in the case 
of the Metidja. From the salt lake we began to rise, 
and crossed a range of hills (or rather a plateau) of 
1,200 or 1,300 feet above the sea ; after which we 
dipped a little, and then mounted another of more 
than 1,600. From this elevation we descended on the 
Isser, a river which has obtained great notoriety in 
the annals of Algeria. The name is identical with 
that of one of the rivers on the borders of Great 



172 SAYAGENESS OE AN ARAB TRIBE. 

Kabylie, as is also the case with one of its affluents — 
the Oued Zeithun. No doubt both belong to the 
Kabyle language and are significant in it ; for the 
tribes both on the river of Oran, and on that of 
Algiers, are of the Kabyle race. 

At the post-station just before descending to the 
Isser, we fell in with a tribe (or portion of a tribe) 
which were described to me as Ouled Ben-Yous- 
souf, and said to occasion the Prench more trouble 
than almost any other at the present time. The 
small camp of them which we passed was exempt from 
contributions to the State, in return for the service of 
watching the stable in which the relays of horses were 
kept. Without this arrangement these would infallibly 
be stolen, probably by their present guardians. Three 
or four of them were sitting on the ground as the 
Arab always does, wrapped in his burnous, with his 
chin resting on his knees, and glared at us from eyes 
in which ferocity and fear were combined much as in 
those of Mr. Van Amburg's lions. They would not 
return our salute, or accept snufi" or tobacco from us, 
but scowled on us in sullen silence without moving, 
except one young man whose curiosity, or cupidity, 
was excited by my aneroid barometer, which he got 
up to look at. He was one of the handsomest and 
most villanous-looking fellows I ever saw ; and I have 
no doubt, except for the awe inspired by the French, 
his yataghan would have been employed upon our 



HOUEIBLE ROUTE. 173 

throats without a moment's delay, or the shadow of a 
scruple. But he had a noble profile, and the eye of 
an eagle. Upon the banks of the Isser, on the other 
hand, we found a tribe of a particularly mild and 
quiet character, engaged in agriculture and appa- 
rently well to do. After crossing the Isser, another 
range of hills is passed before descending on the plain 
which lies to the north of Tlemcen, and I estimated 
the highest point upon them over which the road 
passed, at 1,198 feet above the level of the sea, 
Tlemcen itself being 1,167 higher still. 

It is impossible to convey an adequate idea of the 
condition of the Tlemgen road to those who have not 
tried it. All was very well while we were in the 
neighbourhood of Oran, and within tolerable reach of 
the stone which is obtained from the rocks on the 
western side of the town. But on arriving at a place 
called Les trois puits, very soon after we had reached 
the shore of the sebkah, all pretence at solidity ceased. 
The track which had been marked out for the road 
became, from the ruts upon it, worse than the country 
through which it ran. This, however, is the normal 
state of things ; the coachman and postboy — we never 
had less than six horses, by the way, and often eight 
— showed themselves equal to the emergency, and at 
once turned off into the waste, without a shadow of 
hesitation. Away we went at speed, crashing on over 
dwarf palms and other shrubs, the carriage surging 



174 AFRICAN CHARIOTEERING. 

like a ship in a storm over the inequalities of the 
ground, until from time to time suddenly brought up 
by a quagmire. I have no doubt we left the road 
twenty times in the course of the day, and on one or 
two occasions did not regain it until after a circuit of 
several miles. How the woodwork and springs stood 
is to me incomprehensible. Once the road was quite 
blocked up, while at the side was a low parapet of 
stones piled up a foot high, and beyond them a ditch 
nearly a yard broad, cut to let the waters run o£P. 
To my infinite surprise, the postboy turned the leaders 
right at this. Over they went clear, followed by the 
other four horses, and the other four horses by the 
carriage. Two such jolts as accompanied this brilliant 
manoeuvre I never felt ; but the machine did not seem 
to suffer, neither was the luggage scattered to the 
four winds or the coachman shot into infinite space. 
In short, after a time, the natural apprehensions 
incident to such an undertaking as we were engaged 
in, subsided, and, except for the bruises, it became as 
pleasant an excitement as a gallop after hounds. 
I suppose the habit of driving guns has induced this 
style of charioteering in French Africa ; unless it has 
been handed down traditionally from the time when 
Pindar celebrated the feats of the chiefs of Cyrene. 

The appearance of Tlem^en, as one approaches it, is 
extremely pleasing. The plain around is a complete 
forest of olive-trees of enormous size, belonging to the 



OCCUPATION OF TLEMCEN. 175 

natives, who between the Isser and Tlemyen appear the 
most civihsed and the best to do of any I have seen. 
Their prosperity, however, is only of fifteen years' 
standing; for so long as Abd-el-Kader remained at 
Tlem^en this region was subjected to the horrors of 
war, as much as Belgium in the last century, and for 
similar reasons. Its command was important to the 
Arab chief; for through it he kept up his communi- 
cations with the empire of Morocco, and was enabled 
to receive gunpowder — it is said from Gibraltar — by 
the mouth of the Tafna, — a stream of which the Isser 
just mentioned is one of the tributaries. But in 1842 
a permanent stop was put to these proceedings. 
Tlemfen was occupied in force by General Bedeau, 
an officer whose skill as an administrator became 
remarkable even among the many remarkable men 
which the Algerian conquest produced. After dis- 
playing the power of France by driving Abd-el-Kader 
from the valley of the upper Tafna, he took advantage 
of the character of the Kabyle population, — essentially 
republican, and averse to submission to a central 
power — to excite the latent jealousy which existed 
with regard to the Emir, and propose a league against 
him between them and the French. The design 
perfectly succeeded. The town of Nedrouma, con- 
taining nearly five thousand inhabitants (on the 
northern slope of the hills which lie to the west of the 
lower Tafna), was the first to respond favourably to 



176 FRONTIER WARFARE. 

the invitation, and tlie example was soon followed by 
many other tribes. Before the year was over, the 
Emir was compelled to retire far to the south ; while 
the whole country from Tlemgen to the sea had 
become perfectly well affected to the conquerors, who 
had the good sense to interfere with their new allies 
no further than was necessary to keep them at peace 
with one another. 

The general in command at Tlemgen, to whom 
I had brought an introduction, was absent on a 
promenade militaire in the Sahara; but Colonel Le 
Rouxeau de Rosenkoet, the commandant ad iiderim, 
in return for my request to be allowed an Arab 
trooper who could speak Prench to escort me, gave 
me as a cicerone a young French officer. Lieutenant 
Marty, who was familiar with the whole locality. 
This gentleman was so obliging as to mount me on 
one of his own horses, and we set off attended by 
three spahis, one of whom also spoke French, and 
appeared of superior rank to the other two. Tlemfen 
is only about ten miles from the frontier of Morocco, 
where a deadly hatred to the French prevails; and 
although on the Algerian side of the border the 
natives are kept in good order, the Arabs on the 
other side continually cross and commit acts of 
brigandage. There is no treaty of extradition between 
the two countries, and consequently criminals have 
little difficulty in escaping after the commission of 



ROUGH-HAXDED JUSTICE. 177 

any outrage. If the Morocco robbers are caught, they 
are shot without mercy; and they, not unnaturally, 
always murder when they rob. About three weeks 
ago a poor French colon was killed just outside the 
walls of Tlemcen ; and I observed that only a mile 
out in the country a spahi was always sent on in 
front to reconnoitre, wherever ruins or the like 
appeared to ofPer a cover for a party of bad subjects. 

Mr. Marty complained of the fatiguing character of 
his duty, especially in winter. The only protection 
that can be afforded to the cultivators is to patrol the 
frontier in strong parties by night ; but this is not an 
effectual security, and whenever the nights are dark 
and stormy, some homestead is sure to be burned. 
The offenders are, however, often intercepted on their 
way back, and a very extensive system of espionage is 
organized, I beheve on both sides of the frontier. In 
the course of the afternoon a fourth spahi rode up 
and said something to the lieutenant, when he told 
me that the authorities had received information of 
the murderer of the Frenchman, that he was at that 
moment on the French side of the border, and would 
probably be executed before night. This rough 
method of administering justice is, doubtless, the only 
one possible ; but it is obvious that the evidence 
must in most cases be very incomplete, and that by 
it a frightful scope is given to misconduct on the part 
of the native agents employed, besides sowing an 



178 THE MECHOUAR OE TLEMCEN. 

altogether ineradicable hatred in the bosoms of the 
Marocains, who in the natural course of things 
can hardly fail, sooner or later, to become French 
subjects. 

In the course of the wars which devastated this 
part of the country since 1830, the town of Tlemgen 
was almost entirely destroyed. In the highest part 
of it is a strong walled fortress, which, like the Kasbah 
at Algiers, served as a palace for the chiefs in former 
days. It is called the Mechouar. Upon the capture 
of Algiers by the French, the Arabs here, as well as 
at Oran, endeavoured to throw ofP the yoke of tke 
Turks. But the garrison threw themselves into the 
Mechouar, and for five years resisted all the efforts 
of the Arabs to dislodge them. This apparently 
insignificant circumstance — for the Turks and Kou- 
louglis were only a few hundreds in number — was, 
like the strange course of events at Oran, essential 
to the success of the French; for it prevented the 
consolidation of Abd-el-Kader's power until the hold 
of the conquerors upon the western province had 
become too firm to be shaken off. 

That extraordinary man, who has been called with 
justice the modern Jugurtha, is exactly the same age 
as the present Emperor of the French. He was born 
in the year 1808, and his father, Mahiddin, was a 
marabout of the tribe of the Hachem, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Maskara. The family had for several 



EISE OP ABD-EL-KADER. 179 

generations presided over a kind of college, founded 
by one of their ancestors, and called from him the 
Guetna of Sidi-Mahiddin. It was there that Abd- 
el-Kader was educated by his father to the utmost 
extent to which Arabian cultivation is carried ; and 
it is said that, in addition to great capacity in other 
respects, he displayed at an early age remarkable 
oratorical talent. In the year 1832, the Arabs in 
the neighbourhood of Maskara — -the fall of the 
Algerine dynasty having left them practically inde- 
pendent — were anxious to elect the old Mahiddin 
as their chief. He pleaded his old age, and recom- 
mended them to take his second son ; and to confirm 
his advice told them a story, which, whether true or 
not, was well adapted to influence the imagination of 
his hearers. Several years before, he said, while on 
a pilgrimage to Mecca with his eldest son, he met in 
the neighbourhood of the city a fakeer, who pre- 
sented him with three apples. " One is for thee," 
said the holy man ; " one for him," pointing to the 
boy; and the third for the sultan." What 
sultan ? " said the old man. " Him whom thou hast 
left at home." This augury, then first published, 
contributed not a little to confirm the impression 
which the character of the young chief had already 
made in the neighbourhood of his birthplace. To 
these favourable circumstances was added the secret 
influence of the Emperor of Morocco, who after vainly 

N 2 



180 ABD-EL-KADER AT TLEMCEN. 

attempting to possess himself of a part of the pro- 
vince, in anticipation of the general scramble which 
seemed likely to take place, conceived the thought of 
achieving the same result through the agency of 
another, and for this purpose saw none so well adapted 
as the young son of Mahiddin, who, like himself, 
claimed the honour of a descent from the Prophet. 

Elected Emir of Maskara under these circumstances, 
Abd-el-Kader commenced his career by an attack of 
Oran, which the Erench, after a series of abortive 
schemes for governing it by the agency of a native 
chief, had at last determined to occupy themselves. 
He failed in the attempt ; but by the example which 
he set of personal courage, he succeeded in habituating 
the Arabs to the fire of artillery, of which they had 
hitherto entertained an irresistible fear. Adopting 
another style of w^arfare, he began to cut off the 
supplies which the town had been accustomed to 
receive from the country, and soon made it almost 
entirely dependent on those imported by sea. The 
next year he succeeded in obtaining possession of 
the city of Tlemgen, but was unable either to cajole 
the Turkish garrison of the Mechouar, or to expel 
them by force, having at that time no artillery. But 
his policy in starving the littoral had been so suc- 
cessful, that in the next year (1834) he obtained a 
peace from General Des Michels, the Erench com- 
mandant at Oran, which gave him the port of Arzew, 



THE ERENCH BEEAK WITH HIM. 181 

and confined tlie commerce of Oran and Mostaganem 
(which latter the French had in the meantime occupied) 
to the supply of their own wants. His fortunes now 
grew rapidly. He had succeeded in impressing the 
general with the delusion that through him the French 
might obtain a control over the whole of the tribes 
of the interior ; and actually, with the aid of ammu- 
nition supplied him in this hope, secured a supremacy 
over all the native tribes between the confines of 
Morocco and the river Cheliff. In 1835 he pushed 
on yet farther, crossed the Cheliff and obtained the 
submission of both Cherchell and Tenez, advanced 
from thence to Milianah, where he was received with 
the greatest enthusiasm by all the inhabitants, and 
from thence proceeded to Medeah, where he ap- 
pointed one of his own adherents bey of the province 
of Tittery. The French Government now took the 
alarm, and endeavoured to check the growing great- 
ness of their protege ; but the first attempt in that 
direction ended most unfortunately. General Trezel, 
who had succeeded to the command at Oran, ad- 
vanced with about 2,500 men and five or six guns on 
the road towards Maskara, as far as the banks of the 
Sig. He had been attacked by skirmishers during 
his march, and sufiered so much, although the enemy 
had on every occasion been repulsed, that he felt 
unable to advance farther. In order to save appear- 
ances, he resolved upon his retreat to return, not to 



182 DEFEAT AT THE MAKTA. 

Oran, but to Arzew ; and fearing that arrangements 
might have been made by Abd-el-Kader to attack 
him on the direct route thither, he determined to 
skirt the hills which form the boundary of the valley 
of the Sig on the v^^est, and to come out into the 
open country which surrounds the gulf of Arzew 
by a defile below the junction of the Sig and 
the Habra, where the united streams take the 
name of the Makta (ford). The Emir divined 
his intention, and at once despatched a number of 
cavalry, each carrying a foot-soldier behind him, to 
occupy the pass. When the head of the Trench 
column arrived there, it was the middle of the day, 
and the soldiers were terribly exhausted with the 
heat. On their left were hills, and on their right a 
marsh formed by the Makta ; and the passage between 
was so narrow, that the carriages which contained the 
ammunition and the wounded could only pass singly. 
In this conjuncture the Emir launched his troops 
upon the column, and struck a panic into the whole 
force. Only one carriage, containing wounded, was 
saved ; the ammunition carts were all lost ; and it 
was with the greatest difficulty General Trezel suc- 
ceeded in bringing the survivors of the contest into 
Arzew, where they did not arrive till eight o'clock at 
night, after having been marching incessantly for 
sixteen hours, of which they were actually engaged 
with the enemy for fourteen. No less than 500 



EXPEDITION TO MASKARA. 183 

were left on the field of battle. Abd-el-Kader carried 
off a howitzer, the first he ever possessed ; and the 
French troops were so discouraged by the events of 
the day, that their commander was obliged to send 
them to Oran by sea. This terrible defeat took place 
on the 29th of June, the blackest day of any in the 
annals of the conquest of Algeria. In the following 
November an attempt was made to revenge the insult 
inflicted on the honour of the Erench. The Governor- 
General, Marshal Clausel, accompanied by the Due 
d'Orleans, conducted an expedition with no less than 
11,000 men against Maskara. After encountering 
some opposition, the army reached the town on the 
5th of December ; but Abd-el-Kader with the whole 
of the Mussulman population had abandoned it. Only 
the Jews remained, plundered and ill-treated by the 
Mahometans in the confusion of the evacuation. The 
rain began to fall, and everything looked discou- 
raging. Clausel had brought with him an Arab 
chief, whom he proposed to leave as Bey of Maskara ; 
but this dignitary preferred to return with the army, for 
Abd-el-Kader, with the w^hole population of Maskara, 
was but three leagues off, waiting only for the retreat 
of the French to return to his old quarters. Ac- 
cordingly, it was determined to burn everything 
which could be destroyed and to return to Mosta- 
ganem, transporting thither the whole of the Jewish 
population of Maskara. The retreat commenced on 



184 DISASTROUS RETREAT. 

the 9th. The rain had continued falling, and the 
route, which winds among broken ground, as it 
descends from plateau to plateau, became almost 
invisible from the clouds and n ist. The army suf- 
fered terribly during the three days which elapsed 
before it reached Mostaganem. The baggage animals, 
especially the camels, slipped into the ravines which 
every watercourse forms in an incredibly short space 
of time in this soft soil after rain ; and the slip of a 
loaded camel is nearly sure to disable the animal by 
spraining the hip-joint. The wretched Israelites who 
were being removed suffered worse than the soldiers 
from want of food and misery of all sorts. Numbers 
of children were left to perish on the road, and some 
were preserved only by the compassion of the soldiers. 
An eye-witness relates that he saw a mounted chasseur 
carrying two infants, one in each arm. They were 
very young, and in default of the nourishment they 
expected from their mother, who had probably 
perished, their rough nurse was supplying them with 
his own biscuit, previously masticated to a con- 
dition in which it appeared possible to afford them 
sustenance. 

But with all the success that had hitherto attended 
the Emir, he had not been able to obtain possession of 
the Mechouar of Tlemgen. That still held out, and 
now it was to change hands, and acquire an even 
more obstinate defender. Marshal Clausel, in the next 



CAVAIGNAC m THE MECHOUAR. 185 

month after the unfortunate expedition to Maskara, 
perhaps with a view of retrieving the moral power 
which his ill success had destroyed, set out again at 
the head of another large force, and occupied the 
town. Delighted with its position, and the fertile 
character of the neighbouring country, he formed the 
project of occupying it permanently. But Tlem^en is 
not less than eighty miles from Oran, and the distance 
precluded the idea of being able to keep up communi- 
cations with it. It is not more than a third of the 
distance from the embouchure of the Tafna, and close 
to this is a small island called Rasgoun. The Marshal 
conceived that by seizing this, and establishing a fort 
upon the mainland, he should obtain the power of 
supplying Tlemgen with stores by a much shorter line. 
An attempt to open this communication w^as foiled by 
the difficulties presented by the nature of the country, 
which were such as to enable the Emir to offer an 
effectual opposition to any convoy. Unw^illing, how- 
ever, to relinquish his project, Clausel persisted in the 
original design. The Turks and Koulouglis were 
removed, and a young Yrench ofiicer. Captain Cavaig- 
nac, was placed in the Mechouar with no more than 
273 men, all volunteers. The position appeared an 
almost desperate one ; and it has been said that the 
real object of the Home Government was to sacrifice 
one whose stern republican principles rendered him 
odious to the then existing dynasty, and whose talents 



186 HIS HEROIC BRAYERY 

and energy inspired as mucli fear as admiration. But 
if this was the secret design of the Ministry, their 
scheme was signally foiled. It was not until late in 
the following June that the brave garrison of the 
Mechouar and their intrepid commander were relieved. 
In April, indeed, an effort was made to open a com- 
munication with them from Rasgoun ; but the attempt 
to establish a post on the mainland had awakened all 
the hostility of the Kabyles in the neighbourhood, and 
Abd-el-Kader, profiting by the circumstance, collected 
a force, defeated General d'Arlanges to whom the task 
of relieving Cavaignac had been assigned, and after- 
wards blocked him up in his fortified camp, where he 
was nearly starved before he could be extricated by 
General Bugeaud, by whom at last the relief of the 
Mechouar was efi'ected. But when the relieving ex- 
pedition reached Tlem9en, they found the garrison not 
only alive, but in the highest spirits. All their 
supplies had been long since exhausted, and their 
clothing worn out ; but their indomitable chief had fed 
them from the produce of forays executed by night in 
the neighbouring country, clothed them afresh in the 
same way, and infused into them the firm conviction 
that they were able to hold the fortress against the 
whole Arab nation. Yet all the recognition that their 
extraordinary efforts received was an offer on the part 
of the general, to recommend Cavaignac for promotion 
to the rank of chef de hataillon. Not a word of 



AND MAGNANIMITY. 187 

praise, not the slightest mark of approbation, was 
bestowed upon the heroic band which he had com- 
manded ; and scorning the personal reward which had 
been proffered him, the indignant commander declared 
that he w^onld accept of no distinction which his men 
could not share. Among all the exploits of the 
Algerian campaigns, this maintenance of the Mechouar 
lives the most in the memory of the French African 
army. Cavaignac is their jpreux chevalier beyond all 
others, and the present sovereign of France evinced no 
less sagacity than magnanimity in the respect w^iich 
he showed to the memory of his great rival. 

Important as the part was which the Mechouar 
played, it is utterly indefensible against artillery, 
being commanded by the hills on its southward 
side. If Abd-el-Kader had owned half a dozen 
cannon in IS 34, he would probably at this moment 
be sultan of the whole of Barbary. But the events 
of 1835 and 1836 had unmasked his intentions; 
and although by an adroit diplomacy, no less wonder- 
ful than his talents for war and organization, he suc- 
ceeded in 1837 in procuring a treaty which gave 
him not only Tlemgen, but the whole of the province 
of Tittery, a large portion of that of Algiers, and all 
that of Oran, with the exception of the towns of Mos- 
taganem, Arzew, and Oran, his final destiny was 
inevitable. The pride of the French nation had been 
roused. The merest hint of an intention to abandon 



188 DESTRUCTION OE TLEMCEN. 

the African conquests would have entailed the fall of 
any government. The people were ready to maintain 
their conquests at any cost ; and above all, the men of 
ability in the African armies, the Lamoricieres, Chan- 
garniers, Bedeaus, Cavaignacs, Bugeauds, and others, 
had shown themselves un mistake ably, and could no 
longer be suppressed to favour the feeble proteges of 
the Court. When the Emir's ambition at last stimu- 
lated him to recommence the war, the contest imme- 
diately became one against the whole power of France 
backed by undivided public opinion; and overwhelming 
as his successes were at the first outbreak, no reason- 
able person could doubt the ultimate issue of the 
struggle. 

The exigencies of warfare during the period of 
which a sketch has been given, naturally produced the 
destruction of the greater part of the town of Tlem^en. 
The buildings in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
Mechouar were of course levelled to destroy all cover 
for an enemy. Two or three mosques still remain 
standing, but with these exceptions the whole of the 
upper level has been rebuilt by the French. The 
place is valuable as an important military position, and 
the Mechouar is of course made use of as a barrack 
and arsenal. There is also a military hospital within 
the enceinte. From the ramparts the view is ex- 
tremely beautiful, but not equal to that from the high 
ground about half a mile to the south, from whence 



EEMAINS OE NATIYE TOWN. 189 

tlie prospect extends over the whole of the valley of 
the Tafna, down to the very mouth of the river. The 
new French town contains only two or three streets, 
and ^ place filled with the shops of a few tradespeople, 
chiefly Jews, who minister to the wants of the military. 
Of course there is here a cafe, billiard- tables, a con- 
fectioner, a great number of tobacconists, and one or 
two general shops, such as one sees in an English 
village ; but this constitutes the whole of the Euro- 
pean trade. In the slope below the upper part of the 
town there are three or four streets still remaining of 
the Moorish city, — among them two entirely full of 
low shops, where there appears to be considerable 
native trafiic, and even some manufactures. I saw 
house furniture being made, silk embroidered, and in 
two or three instances handlooms at work. The native 
population is cDtirely confined to the lower part of the 
town. Mixed up with them I saw several of the 
people from the other side of the Morocco frontier, dis- 
tinguishable both by the villainous expression in their 
countenances, and by their garb, which is not a bour- 
nous but a loose sort of tunic of a brown colour with 
black stripes running down it very close to one another. 
The same dress is worn by the Beni-Mozabites, a 
remarkable tribe which will be described below. 

Under the escort of Lieutenant Marty I visited 
a most singular and extensive ruin which exists about 
a mile from the outer circuit of the ancient walls. 



190 MAGNITUDE OF ANCIENT CITY. 

l^hese are far in advance of the existing city, wliich 
bears about tbe same relation in point of size to that 
which must once have been, as the stone of a peach 
to the fruit. At least five distinct circles of fortifica- 
tion are traceable; and within the precincts of one 
of these, whose extent may be judged from the fact 
that it took me eleven minutes to walk to the nearest 
part of the existing wall, there are enormous numbers 
of olive-trees of immense age, — probably eight or nine 
hundred years old. These must, of course, have been 
planted subsequently to the destruction of the 
buildings whose place they occupy. The Arab tradi- 
tions state that the population of Tlem^en once 
amounted to 200,000, and that its wealth was 
fabulous. It was during this, its flourishing time, 
that a sultan of Fez, or of Mostaganem, — for, like all 
mythical stories, this one, while preserving the kernel 
of the legend, varies in all its details, — laid siege to 
the city. Unable to take it after an attempt which 
lasted as long as that upon Troy, he resolved to build 
another city in the immediate vicinity.* So numerous 
was his army, that his cavalry brought from the 
mouth of the Tafna, in the folds of their bournouses, 

* This was to be an emreixio-fjia from which fco gall Tlemgen, — a 
feature in the legend which may give some clue to the time in which 
it sprang up, i.e. while the Turkish conquests were proceeding, 
and this method was adopted for overcoming the resistance of the 
fortified cities of which the barbarous invaders gradually possessed 
themselves. 



THE MANSOURAH. 191 

the earth for making the walls. Prom this, and some 
other substances, a cement was made of which the 
new city was built, — a manufacture which none now 
can imitate. The stately ramparts arose, and within 
them there was a mosque far surpassing any that 
existed in Tlem^en. Part of it was built by Maho- 
metans and part by Jews. The former still stands, 
the latter has fallen. The name of Mansourah (the 
fortunate) was given to the new city, of which the 
ruins alone now remain. Its arms effected the 
destruction of Tlemyen, and then it fell itself. Such 
is the account which local traditionary history gives 
of these curious remains. It is unnecessary to 
criticise the details of the story. The Mansourah 
was, apparently, built by one of the sovereigns of 
Tlem^en in its palmy days, as a palace for himself. 
The area is an oblong, extending from north to south, 
but the north-west angle of the oblong is cut off, so 
that the whole forms an irregular pentagon, of which 
the circumference is not less than a mile or a mile 
and a half. The thickness of the walls throughout 
was not less than six feet, and their height about 
twenty-five. So much still remains, that it is plain 
there were square towers every thirty or forty yards, 
and that the whole circumference, wall and towers, 
was regularly battlemented. But in the north-west 
angle the ruins of the mosque afford the most won- 
derful sight of all. The minaret is split from top to 



192 WALLS OE ARTIFICIAL CONCRETE. 

bottom, and half remains standing, more than one 
hundred feet in height. The mosque itself constituted 
a separate fortification. Its walls, as well as those of 
the circuit of the Mansourah, are perforated through- 
out, to admit of arrows being shot or spears protruded 
through the orifices. The material of the whole is 
not stone, but an artificial concrete, which seems to 
have been made in large blocks. It is extremely 
hard, which no stone in the vicinity of Tlem9en is. 
The minaret of the mosque contained eight stories, 
which may be distinctly traced inside. Its outer face 
is elaborately ornamented in the best Arabian style ; 
but in the lower part of the facade the ornamentation 
is effected by carved stones, which are, apparently, of 
Koman origin, and were, no doubt, brought from the 
ruins of one of the Roman towns in this neighbour- 
hood after its destruction by the Vandals. 

As the Mansourah lies upon the northern incline of 
the hills which back Tlem9en, the southern end of the 
oblong area is higher than the rest. From this upper 
side a single line of fortification extends up into the 
mountain which is close above, so as to form a barrier 
and prevent any one from passing to the north of the 
inclosure. The direction of the face of this towards 
Tlem^en may, perhaps, have formed the basis of the 

* This is also the case with the ancient walls of Tlgmpen, and also 
with the ruins at Souk-el-Mitou, about eighteen miles from Mosta- 
ganem. 



TRACES OF FORMER GREATNESS. 193 

legend just related. But the sumptuous style of the 
mosque and the character of the building throughout 
would prove decisively (if proof were necessary) that 
the work was not effected for any temporary purpose, 
such as the taking a neighbouring town ; and more- 
over, that it would never have been undertaken except 
by some one who had the command of very large 
funds. 

But the whole story of Tlemcen is obscure. That 
it passed through great vicissitudes is obvious ; but 
there is a break in its history, which up to the 
present time no one has been able to fill up. After 
Lieutenant Marty had left me in the afternoon, I set 
out by myself on foot to explore a portion of the 
ancient wall which seemed to be the lowest part of 
the widest circle of the old fortifications, and had 
especially attracted my attention by a handsome 
minaret which remained just outside it, apparently 
perfect, although every trace of the mosque to which 
it belonged had vanished. But beyond this enceinte 
there ran a brook, and beyond the brook there 
appeared a further fortification, possibly intended as 
an outwork. All was in ruins, but exhibited marks of 
strength far exceeding that of the most recent of the 
walls. The whole is in the midst of a grove of olive- 
trees growing on ruins, which the French have called 
the "Bois de Boulogne," and cut some paths in it for 
the benefit of promenaders. I found a couple of 

o 



194 AEAB HOCKEY. 

apparently well-educated Frenchmen here, and tried 
to learn something from them in explanation of what 
met my eye. But they assured me that nothing was 
known, adding, " Vous navez qua voir et y rejiecliir, 
Monsieur^ et vous pourrez en /aire une histoire auiant 
quun autre J' Any enthusiasm, however, for ex- 
ploring, which this encouragement might have excited, 
was damped by my new acquaintance calling my 
attention to the height of the sun, and recommending 
me not to let the shades of evening overtake me in 
the Bois de Boulogne. 

On my way back to the town I witnessed an 
amusing spectacle,' — forty or fifty Arabs playing 
hockey. It was the only time I ever saw this grave 
impassive race in a state of active enjoyment. On 
this occasion, however, they certainly were so, — at 
least the players. The scene of the sport was a large 
quadrangular inclosure, part of a ruined building of 
some kind. The game was played with large crooked 
sticks, of which the bent part was tied round with 
a cord, so as to form a kind of spoon, and the ball — 
which was a large leathern pudding — was not struck, 
but pushed or spooned. There were three holes in 
three of the four sides of the ruin, and a party of 
players corresponding to each ; and the object seemed 
to be for every two of these to combine against the 
third, so as to defeat their efforts to drive the ball 
through their own hole. Such a game is an apt 



TOMB OF SIDI-BOU-MEDINE. 195 

emblem of the political life of the race, ever ready to 
combine against a government, even if it be one 
which they themselves have helped to set up. 

After visiting the Mansourah, Mr. Marty took me 
to a village in the neighbourhood called Sidi-Bou- 
Medine, v^^hich has grown up around the marabout of 
a Mahometan saint of the same name. A very beau- 
tifully decorated mosque — now being restored — stands 
close by the marabout. So sacred is this village 
reputed, that no European is allowed to reside in it. 
Notwithstanding this, the Prench officer and myself 
were admitted into the very sanctuary, without taking 
off our boots or spurs — much against my own wish. 
Both the tomb of Sidi-Bou-Medine and that of Sidi- 
Absalom, who lies by his side, are covered with rich 
carpets, and the walls hung round with offerings, very 
much in the same style as in the marabout of Sidi- 
Abd-el-Rahman described elsewhere. In this case 
there was also a sort of chancel-screen in front of the 
two tombs, completely covered with banners, which, 
I was told, were renewed annually. Close to the 
apartment containing the tombs is another in which 
four or five persons are bm^ied, who were admirers of 
one or other of the two saints. Opposite to these 
chambers, but still within the enceinte of the mara- 
bout, is another chamber with benches, on which 
pilgrims who frequent the shrine sometimes spread 
their carpets and pass the night. Within the precinct 

o 2 



196 AKAB SCHOOL. 

is' also a well, surrounded with a tube of white 
marble, down which a small bucket (which held about 
two quarts) was let by a chain and some water brought 
up. This was offered to me, but I did not taste it, 
upon which some of the people who were with us 
drank it eagerly; and as they certainly were not at 
the time thirsty, I imagine that some particular virtue 
is supposed to reside in the spring. 

We were conducted from the marabout to an 
elevated bank nearly opposite, where, under the shade 
of a tree, we found a carpet spread on a bench of 
stone in the open air. On this the officer and I 
took our seats, the superior spahi on a stool just 
below us, and the other two with four or five people 
of the village on a stone bench at right angles to 
ours some way off. They then .brought us coffee, 
prepared in the Arab fashion, and a large basket 
filled with nuts, pomegranates, and dates, to which 
a bowl of milk was soon added. After drinking om^ 
coffee, and just tasting the contents of the basket, 
which I was told ought to be done, a live coal was 
brought in a pair of tongs for us to light our cigars, 
and the spahi then took the provisions and carried 
them to the occupants of the lower bench, who con- 
sumed them with every appearance of appetite. I 
fancy the theory of the transaction was that these 
people were feeding on our bounty. In an apartment 
adjoining the mosque we found a school in which the 



GOVERNMENT BREEDING STABLE. I97 

children of the village were being taught to read. 
One of them, a little creature of only four years old, 
was the son of the schoolmaster. It was painfully 
studying the Arabic alphabet on a well-thumbed bit 
of parchment, with the usual accompaniments in such 
cases of a pouting mouth and dirty nose. 

The Government keep up a breeding stable at 
Tleingen, for the use of the tribes ; but there were 
at the time no fine horses in it, the best having been 
dispersed over the country. The long wars since the 
conquest of Algiers were so destructive, that there 
resulted a manifest degeneracy in the quality of the 
race ; and to remedy the mischief, the Government 
has of late years purchased stallions at high prices, 
and allowed the Arabs to avail themselves of them 
gratuitously. The best breeding stable is considered 
to be that at Mostaganem. In this I saw a very 
handsome Syrian horse, for which 7,000 francs had 
been paid. He was the most expensive of the whole 
collection, but there were three or four other very 
fine animals. The lowest price for which a stallion 
can be procured which it would be desirable to use as 
a stud horse is about 4,000 francs ; but for ordinary 
purposes, from 500 to 700 francs will purchase a 
good horse in the western province, and in the 
eastern the price would be even less. Mr. Marty 
told me that his charger which I rode, had cost 700 
francs. It was from Morocco, and a powerful animal, 



198 DIET OE BARBARY HORSES. 

thicker in the carcase than the Amh horses usually 
are, of a gray colour, and with a rat-tail. I saw- 
several others of the same type in the neighbourhood 
of Oran, but scarcely any either in the central or 
eastern provinces, and I imagine that this variety of 
the Barb is peculiar to the empire of Morocco. Mr. 
Marty's own horse was a black, much lighter in the 
crest and finer in the head. He told me he had 
more than once galloped him for fifteen leagues. 
The great value of the Barb consists in his endurance 
of fatigue and hard fare. The full allowance of food 
which he ever receives is ten pounds of barley and 
the same weight of hay, w^here the latter is attain- 
able ; but of the latter very few horses belonging to 
the natives get any. The animal is fed at the close 
of his day's work, having been allowed to drink 
about half an hour or an hour before. The barley 
is put into a nosebag, and the horse is left to eat 
it at his leisure during the night. During the whole 
day he is not allowed either to eat or drink ; and 
he is never put into a close stable or littered down. 
It is quite an error to suppose that the Arabs never 
trot their horses. I have seen them often do it ; but 
the usual pace in travelling is a quick walk, which the 
Barb will keep up for an almost unlimited time. On 
campaigns this breed is said to be unrivalled. The 
whole of the French cavalry in Africa is now furnished 
with native horses ; and I was informed that their use 

\ 



THEIR SPECIAL MERITS. 199 

is rapidly extending to Europe, and that before long 
the army will be mounted exclusively on them. The 
Emperor was at first unfavourable to the plan, but he 
has since altered his views ; and m.y informants added 
that, in the event of an European war, the superior 
mobility of the cavalry resulting from the substitution 
of African for European horses would astonish every 
one. It struck me that by a judicious selection of 
stallions from this breed it would be possible to im- 
prove yet further the agricultural horse of Norfolk 
and Suffolk, retaining his weight and stature, but 
hardening his constitution, and increasing his activity ; 
and if I had been a scientific farmer, I should cer- 
tainly have brought back with me a specimen or 
two of large barbs in order to make the experiment/ 
Erom Tlemgen I returned again to Oran, by the 
recommendation of Colonel Le Rouxeau, who told me 
that the season was not sufficiently advanced to allow 
me to take the cross route to Maskara by Sidi Bel 
Abbes without risk of detention by the swelling of the 
streams I should have to ford. By returning to Oran 
I gained one advantage, — that of seeing by dayhght 
the portion of the route which in coming I had passed 
in the dark. But there are no striking features in it. 
About half-way is the village Ain-Temouchent, — 
exhibiting the ordinary characteristics of the new 
African villages, of being surrounded with a loopholed 
wall, and suffering from fever in the summer. Except 



200 AIN-TEMOUCHENT. 

in the immediate neighbourhood of this, of BoutleHs, 
and Miserghin, the whole country is covered with the 
usual Algerian bush. The two villages of BoutleHs 
and Miserghin, which are of considerable size and sur- 
rounded with loopholed walls, are now chiefly peopled 
by Spaniards. Between the latter and Oran are a good 
many aloe hedges, but farther inland I did not see 
the plant at all. Two or three strings of camels met 
us in different parts of the route, bringing salt from 
the Sebkah of Oran, which the Arabs are allowed to 
take on paying a franc for every camel-load; and 
we saw also, both in going and returning, several 
douairs of nomads. In one of these, which we 
passed just after daybreak in going to Tlemgen, the 
sheep and goats were being milked before being let 
out from the middle of the encampment, where they 
had been kept during the night for safety from 
marauders and wild beasts. Where there is danger 
from either of these causes, the tents are pitched near 
to each other in the circumference of a regular circle, 
but this rule is not observed where there is nothing 
to fear. The neighbourhood of Ain-Temouchent is 
rather troubled with lions, which at night destroy 
some of the cattle ; and a little farther to the south, 
on the line from Sidi Bel Abbes to Mihanah, passing 
through Maskara and Orleansville, is the region of 
panthers, — an animal which, from its cunning and its 
power of climbing trees, is much more feared as an 



LIONS AND PANTHERS. 201 

adversary than the lion by both Arabs and Europeans, 
— while its cruelty in slaughtering many more cattle 
than it devours renders it a greater pest to the farmer. 
A young lieutenant of Engineers whom I met on my 
way from Maskara to Mostaganem, told me that in 
the part of the country just mentioned he had often 
when out at night found it prudent to take refuge by 
the Arab fires instead of pursuing his journey, in con- 
sequence of finding these animals too closely upon his 
track. The statement surprised me, as I had no idea 
they ever followed either man or beast by scent, but 
supposed they lay in wait for their prey, and sprang 
upon it unawares. 

The only military position which the French occupy 
to the south of Tlemgen in the vicinity of the Morocco 
frontier is Sebdou, which is about twenty-six miles ofi". 
As far as that point the land rises in plateau after 
plateau. Arrived at the top, the traveller enters upon 
what is called the Little Sahara, a region of salt lakes 
at a high elevation surrounded by plains abounding in 
the halfa^ a rush like that of which Indian matting is 
made. In these plains wells are only found here and 
there. In the vicinity of Sebdou is an elevated forest 
region, to the south of which the land again descends 
by a similar series of plateaux into the Great Sahara, or 
sandy desert. This description I was informed appHed 
with very little variation to the whole of the elevated 
land between what is called on the maps the Little and 



202 COPPER MINES OF SEBDOU. 

Great Atlas, extending from near the Atlantic to the 
vicinity of the Syrtes, and in one part I was subse- 
quently enabled to verify the correctness of the 
account. Near Sebdou are some mines where copper 
is said to be found in considerable quantity, and I be- 
lieve some silver also. The numbers of the workmen, 
(who amount to 1,200 or 1,500, and are all armed,) 
furnish a security against a regular attack; but an 
escort is always requisite to accompany the mail from 
Sebdou to Tlem^en, and vice versa, the tribes having 
got a strange notion into their head that it carries 
treasure. I was informed that the mines of Sebdou 
exhibited marks of having been worked in the Roman 
times, and should have been glad to have visited them, 
for which the Commandant politely offered me the 
means ; but the expedition required three days, and I 
could not spare the time without giving up Maskara 
or Mostaganem. 



JOURNEY TO MASKARA. 



203 



CHAPTER VIII. 



The diligence from Oran to Maskara sets off at the 
same hour with that to Tlem^en, viz. three a.m. but the 
distance is considerably less, being only sixty-seven or 
sixty-eight miles, and the road, although bad in many 
parts, very much better ; so that we arrived by two 
P.M. The route, like that to Tlem^en, traverses the 
great plain in which the Sebkah lies, and at a distance 
of ten miles from Oran passes by a wretched village, 
called Valmy, or Le Siguier, — the latter from a fig-tree 
of gigantic proportions by the side of which a treaty 
was made, in the early part of the occupation of 
Algeria, between General Trezel and the two Arab 
tribes of the Douair and Zmela. It is also the site of 
a post established by Abd-el-Kader for the purpose of 
cutting off the supplies which the town of Oran derived 
from the interior. After traversing a low chain of 
hills, the road descends, at a distance of thirty-five 
miles from Oran, upon the banks of the Sig, where 
the village of St. Denis, which was built in 1845, 
indicates the point from whence General Trezel, ten 



204 FAILURE OE COMMUNISTIC EXPERIMENT. 

years before, commenced the retreat upon Arzew before 
the force of Abd-el-Kader, which resulted in the cala- 
mitous defeat of El Makta. We found a new bridge of 
wood building here. The soil in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood is extremely fertile, and especially favour- 
able to the production of tobacco, wine, and silk. 
The year after the foundation of the village an attempt 
was made to bring it into cultivation by a society 
called the Agricultural Union of Algeria. More than 
3,000 hectares of ground were conceded to this body, 
whose distinctive principle was that the labom-er should 
be admitted to a partnership in the projQts of the under- 
taking. The enterprise proved a sad failure. Money 
was never forthcoming in sufficient quantity to prevent 
sacrifice by inopportune sales. Every labourer was 
attacked by fever. The financial crisis which in Africa 
followed the revolution of 1848 put a final stop to the 
subscriptions of the capital of the Association, which 
never reached the half of the sum originally contem- 
plated — £40,000. Then came three years of cholera, 
which in the last quarter of the year 1850 kiUed thirty- 
seven out of one hundred and twenty labourers em- 
ployed on the lands of the Association. The under- 
taking finally subsided into an ordinary joint-stock 
company, conducted by a paid agent ; after nearly 
half of the original concession had been given up to 
redeem a forfeiture which had been incurred of the 
whole, by failure to fulfil all the conditions that had 



APPROACH TO MASKAHA. 205 

been annexed to the grant. At the present time, 
however, the locahty is become tolerably healthy, and 
cotton and tobacco are grown to some extent. 

From the bridge of the Sig the ground rises again, 
and the road crosses the elevated land between the 
valleys of the Sig and the Habra. After traversing 
the latter, the high hills are reached, and the ascent 
becomes continuous until within about a mile of Mas- 
kara, the road winding in terraces up the mountain. 
The highest point is, according to my estimate, 2,032 
feet above the sea-level, and Maskara itself, which lies 
on the southern slope, 2,041 feet. But the weather 
was obviously deteriorating during the whole of the 
journey, and therefore there is every probability that 
the barometer fell from this cause to some extent. 
For the last three or four miles we had hail, and the 
air was extremely cold, and I congratulated myself 
that I was sheltered by a carriage instead of being 
exposed on horseback in the plain of Eghres, where I 
should have been had I fulfilled my original design of 
coming from Tlem^en across the country. It so hap- 
pened that the head of the Bureau Arabe at Maskara, 
to whom I had brought letters, was detained by the 
weather in this very locality, and did not get home for 
two days. The plain of Eghres seems very much to 
resemble the Metidja, as one looks down upon it from 
Maskara. The new town itself is built something like 
Oran, on two sides of a ravine through which a brook 



206 TUADE OF MASKAEA. 

runs, and this on its way down is utilized for irrigating 
the gardens which fill the hollow. The fortifications 
are constructed with apparently more than usual care. 
The universal loopholed wall is here and there bas- 
tioned, and one or two cannon placed so as to sweep 
all approaches. The fortification too is carried across 
the brook in both places where the line of the wall 
cuts it. On the most elevated portion of the space 
within the walls are spacious barracks, and in a part 
of the remainder streets are laid out on an imposing 
scale, waiting only for the builder to reahze the plan 
of the architect. At present the effect is an extremely 
melancholy one. There is one little inn and a few 
shops, but the rest of the area is nearly void. Just 
outside the walls, as you enter from the north, is a 
bazaar, frequented in about equal proportions by Arabs 
and Jews. Maskara is famous as a staple for the 
bournouses and haiks manufactured by the Arab 
women, having in this respect no rival but Tunis. All 
the shops in the bazaar are filled with specimens of 
this kind of work, and the shopkeeper himself will 
sometimes take one off his own shoulders, if he thinks 
it likely to attract a customer. To the north-east of 
the walls are the ruins of the old town, for the most 
part turned into huts by a tribe of sedentary Arabs, 
whose straw gourbis are mixed up with the scarcely 
less miserable hovels constructed out of the debris 
of the masonry. There are, however, a few houses 



GROWTH OF THE VINE. 207 

still surviving the destruction of Maskara. They are 
universally of one story high, with flat roofs. The 
fate before the poor Arab squatters is a very melan- 
choly one. Their presence is obviously quite incom- 
patible vrith the development of the tov^^n on the plan 
contemplated by the Trench. I remarked this to 
some officers, whose curiosity was excited by the ap- 
pearance of a stranger. They told me that they would 
no doubt be removed, and named Milianah as a place 
where there was room for them. But I fancy, from 
the look and the shrug with which the diminution of 
their numbers was spoken of, that they are even now 
perishing away from the effects of imported vices, and 
that it will only be a remnant, if any, that must be 
removed to make room for cafes and estaminets. 

The country around Maskara is exceedingly favour- 
able to the cultivation of the vine. The wine produced 
is not unlike the Steinwein which one gets at Wiirz- 
burg ; and if equal pains were taken in the selection 
of the plant and the manufacture of the wine, I have 
little doubt the results would be very important both 
here and at Medeah. At each of these places are 
found the important conditions for the perfection of 
the grape, heat in summer and a considerable amount 
of cold in winter. But unhappily at neither of them 
is the wine-grower a man of capital, who can aflPord to 
wait several years for the return of his outlay. All 
kinds of grapes and in all degrees of ripeness are 



208 DELAYS IN ADMINISTRATION. 

thrown together into the press, and the wine is never 
kept for more than two or three years before it is 
consumed. Some of the cultivators, however, are 
thriving. I went into the house of one who had been 
there almost ever since the occupation of Maskara by- 
General Lamoriciere, that is, for fifteen or sixteen 
years, and he professed himself quite satisfied with 
the country, but not with the way in which business 
was done. The annoying delay in putting a colonist 
in possession of the lot of land conceded to him, was 
constantly complained of wherever I went : but the 
worst case I heard of was that of the eldest son of 
this farmer, a remarkably fine young man, and to 
all appearance steady and industrious in the highest 
degree. He had, he said, been waiting fifteen months 
for the fulfilment of a promise which had been made 
to him of a " concession." In his case the worst 
consequences of delay were averted ; for he lived with 
his father and helped him in the tillage of his own 
land ; but it is easy to imagine the utter ruin in 
purse, constitution, and character, which must befal 
an ordinary peasant left in one of the towns of the 
littoral for many months before he obtains a location. 
An effective machinery for settling emigrants at once 
upon their grants, and good roads to enable them to 
transmit their produce to the coast, are the first 
desiderata of Algeria, if it is to become really a colony 
and not continue simply a dependency. 



ROUTE TO MOSTAGANEM. 209 

The bad weather in which I arrived at Maskara 
ceased for a couple of hours before sunset, but 
returned again in the night, and the next morning 
I fully expected to remain a prisoner for two or three 
days. Captain D'Abert, the brother-in-law of Captain 
Saal, the head of the Bureau Arabe, strongly dissuaded 
me from attempting the direct route to Mostaganem, 
on account of the effect of the rain upon the soft soil of 
the country. There are two bridle ways. The shorter 
one passes over a high plateau, considerably above the 
level of Maskara, which itself I found so cold as 
to render a fire absolutely necessary in my bedroom. 
The other road, however, presented two obstacles 
which were conclusive to a convalescent. The one 
was a descent in soft clay over a path only about 
a yard wide, with a fall of some three hundred feet 
on each side; the other a marsh to pass, which 
after rain comes up higher than the horses' bellies. 
It seemed scarcely possible to take either of these 
routes without undoing all the good which had been 
produced by a winter in Africa, and early in the 
morning I gave up the idea of proceeding. But a 
few hours afterwards I observed that my barometer 
had considerably risen, and that the atmosphere was 
beginning to clear. I therefore returned to Captain 
D'Abert, and told him that if the existing state of 
things continued I would start at one o'clock, if he 
could procure me a good horse and allow me a 

p 



210 HIGH PLATEAUX OF LIMESTONE. 

trooper to attend me. He was extremely polite, and 
at the appointed time appeared with a horse on which 
he had had one of his own saddles placed, and a 
couple of spahis, the one of whom was to carry my 
small valise, and the other, who from his embroidered 
saddle and bridle appeared to be of superior condi- 
tion, to be responsible for my good treatment on the 
way. 

I was to pass the night with the Agha of El Borj, 
an Arab chief high in the confidence of the French, 
to whom the superior spahi was the bearer of a letter 
of introduction. Almost as soon as we were fairly en 
route, the weather cleared up, and the only incon- 
venience I had to suffer was from the weight of two 
bournouses, in which M. D'Abert had kindly invested 
me, assuring me — which I have no doubt was quite 
true — that they would keep out even a tropical rain.* 
We ascended immediately after leaving the town, 
and rode along a high narrow plateau which runs 
south-west and north-east, and separates the great 
plain on the south-east of Maskara (the plain of 
Eghres) from that on the north-west, which is a 
portion of the valley of the Habra. We kept getting 

* Two bournouses are necessary for this purpose. One soon gets 
wet through ; but two furnish an effectual protection, if they are of 
the best quality. The Arabs often wear half-a-dozen over one 
another, and possibly their sedate manners are necessitated by the 
great weight they habitually carry. The two bournouses, where only 
two are worn, are white and black ; the former being put outside in 
warm weather, the latter in cold. 



DESCENT ON EL BORJ. 211 

higher and higher; but the weather was now fine, 
and my cumbrous garb efiectually prevented me from 
feeling the least cold. In some parts the view was 
most magnificent ; in one especially, where the plateau 
had narrowed to a breadth of only five or six hundred 
feet, from which we looked on the right hand over the 
plain of Eghres, and towards the left to a moun- 
tainous frame inclosing the valley of the Habra. The 
soil was a sandstone interspersed with strata of lime- 
stone, the whole very much cracked by the eff'ect of 
earthquakes. The heavy rains of Africa following 
these, have, in many places, washed the soft sandstone 
away, leaving a complete range of limestone cliffs such 
as one sees on the shores of the sea. On the top of 
the plateau, too, large masses of limestone and bare 
sheets of the same are frequent, from the same cause, 
viz. the comparative resistance which they offered to 
the heavy rains which washed away the loose sand- 
stone from them. 

After riding for about two hours and a half through 
this scenery, we began to descend upon El Borj, 
which we saw in the distance.* It is in the middle 
of a narrow elevated plain which breaks the range 
over which we had been proceeding, and constitutes 
the pass, not only between the plains of Eghres and 

* I made the elevation of El Borj to be 717 feet above Maskara. 
The plateau over which we had been passing was four or five 
hundred feet higher still. 

p 2 



212 RECEPTION BY THE AGHA. 

the Habra, but between the latter and the valley of 
the lower Cheliff, whose affluents from the south are 
divided from the plain of Eghres by a similar plateau 
to the one we had traversed, running east and west. 
Its position, therefore, is extremely important in a 
military point of view, as it protects the region round 
about Arzew and Mostaganem from attacks both on 
the part of the Hachem (i\.bd-el-Kader's tribe), who 
inhabit the plain of Eghres, and on that of the Flitta, 
a Kabyle tribe of great power in the south-west part 
of the valley of the lower ChelifF. 

El Borj was destroyed by Abd-el-Kader in revenge 
for the want of resistance on the part of the Bordja to 
the expedition under Marshal Clausel which burnt 
Maskara ; but it was then only a petty village without 
any fortifications. The place is now surrounded with 
a loopholed wall, perhaps of three-quarters of a mile 
in extent, in the midst of which stands the habitation 
of the Agha. When about a quarter of a mile off, 
my spahi rode on to deliver the letter from the French 
authorities, and I followed with the other at a more 
dignified pace. The great man received me half-way 
up the stairs which led to his door, and conducted me 
to the guest chamber, where I found a young French 
officer of Engineers already arrived. I requested him 
to inform the Agha how pleased I was to have the 
opportunity of visiting a great native chief ; but, to 
my surprise, he told me he could not speak Arabic. 



CASTLE OF A NATIVE CHIEF. . 213 

However, a black tirailleur indigene, Avho bad come 
with him, was sent for, and acted as interpreter. He 
took his place at the fire by which we were seated, 
and is responsible for whatever efi'ect my remarks 
produced upon my host. 

After we had drunk some cofiee and appeared suf- 
ficiently warmed, the Agha proposed to show us a new 
house which he was building, and of which he was 
obviously extremely proud. It was curious to see the 
form which his architectural taste had taken. The 
edifice is in fact a blockhouse, a square building with 
very thick walls, two stories high. It has an open 
court in the middle, and the general construction is 
precisely that of an ordinary Moorish dwelling. But 
there are only four windows, one in the middle of each 
side of the first floor, exactly corresponding to the 
embrasures for cannon in a real blockhouse. Around 
them is a recess, professedly for the purpose of private 
conversation, like the oriel window or parloir in the 
old Enghsh halls, but really representing the space 
requisite for trailing a gun. All the other windows 
were mere loopholes for musketry. The luxe of the 
house w^as mainly of a Moorish character, the floors 
and walls being covered with encaustic tiles ; but 
together with these was a Erench bed for the Agha, 
and a few patches of a gaudy flock paper which had 
the oddest eS'ect in the midst of the tiles on the wall. 

Within the fortification there were several Arab 



214 AN AEAB WARDEN OP THE MAECHES. 

gourbis, asses turned out to pasture, one or two 
patches of ground cultivated as garden, and a mosque, 
which last the Agha had recently built. Into the 
precinct are driven at night a large number of cattle, 
to insure their safety from wild beasts or plunderers. 
There were also just outside a number of other 
gourhis, whose tenants would of course, in the event 
of danger, retreat within the fortification. The whole 
furnished an excellent parallel to the state of things 
existing in mediaeval Europe. Here was the fort of 
the great noble, the church of which he was the 
patron, the retainers who were immediately about 
his person, and the vassals in the vicinity, who re- 
paired to his standard and sought his protection on 
the occasion of a foray being made by a neighbour. 
The Agha's title, too, and his functions, are nearly 
identical with those of Warden of the Marches. He 
is, in fact, a Mahometan Percy, with the commandant 
of the western province of Algeria for his liege lord. 

At half-past six we sat down to a dinner furnished 
with knives, forks, and napkins ; for the Agha has the 
reputation of being tres-civilise. First came soup, 
then a stew of kid, followed by another of mutton, 
each in a wooden bowl, and finally a dish of kous- 
kous,^ the favourite Arab viand. Wine was provided 
for the heutenant and me, but the chief of course 
drank only water. The lieutenant had a sapper in 
* See note at the end of the chapter. 



ARAB SUMPTUOUSNESS. 215 

attendance upon him, who was sent for as the soup 
disappeared, and during the remainder of the dinner 
sat upon a chair at some distance from us, the cliaouch 
(Arab butler) handing him each dish as we had done 
with it. From him it was sent out to my spahis 
and the tirailleur, who messed together downstairs. 
After dinner coffee was brought us in cups of the 
most delicate porcelain, each placed in a saucer of 
fretted silver, which fitted like an egg-cup, and the 
whole set upon an elaborately ornamented circular 
salver. The cups and salver were, the Agha said, 
of Morocco workmanship. We then drew round the 
fire, and the tirailleur found his way in again ; but 
we had little conversation, for the officer persisted, 
with what I thought extremely bad taste, in ad- 
dressing himself exclusively to me, and quite ignoring 
the existence of our host. Irrespectively of all gen- 
tlemanly feeling, as the French give the Agha the 
rank of a general officer in their own army, it seemed 
only becoming that he should be treated with corre- 
sponding respect by a subaltern ; and it struck me 
that he felt the incivility which was put upon him, 
for about half-past eight he got up, and very shortly 
wished us good night. Our arrangements for bed 
did not take us long, for we had simply to lie 
wrapped up in our cloaks on mattresses of crin 
vegetal, which were ranged round the apartment in 
which we had dined. I believe, however, that I should 



216 FROST IN THE MOUNTAINS. 

have slept very soundly had it not been for a whole 
army of dogs which kept up a continual bark through- 
out the night, as they scented the animals which came 
prowling about the inclosure or heard their cries in 
the distance. As it was, I do not think I got an hour 
and a half's sleep in the whole night. The next 
morning the chaoucli brought us cofFee, and the Agha 
came to bid us farewell ; but I do not believe he had 
recovered his good humour, and after accompanying 
us only as far as the top of his staircase, he returned 
to his own room. 

It was exactly six o'clock as the lieutenant and I, 
with om' attendants, rode out of the inclosure of El 
Borj, and the pools of rain-water were covered with 
ice, — the first I had seen since leaving Europe. But 
the day broke beautifully, and we rode on enjoying 
the fresh morning air, as we descended from plateau 
to plateau, over ground of the same character as that 
of the preceding day. After about an hour we came 
upon a party of four gazelles, who moved off very 
leisurely, and without the least display of fear. We 
also sprang several coveys of partridges. As we got 
lower, the ground became more thickly covered with 
brushwood, and finally assumed exactly the character 
of the Sahel of Algiers. The route we were taking 
was the same as that pursued by the French army 
after burning Maskara; and small as the quantity of 
rain was which had fallen in the last forty-eight hours. 



ErFECT OF THE RAINS. 217 

it was enough to make one understand the difficulties 
which they must have had to overcome in their 
retreat. In several instances we found the path cut 
by a gully of several yards deep ; and in one place 
the piles of a wooden bridge across a rivulet were so 
undermined, that the structure slanted, and the lead- 
ing spahi halted on arriving, from fear of its coming 
down. However, the scientific part of om- body 
sanctioning the trial, we all scrambled over one by 
one, keeping close to the higher side, the sapper 
taking the lead, and I, with a civilian's discreetness, 
bringing up the rear. Indeed, except for the cer- 
tainty of getting a wetting, I should undoubtedly 
have forded the brook. The solitude of our ride 
was almost complete ; we met nobody for several 
hours, and heard no sound except the cries of jackals 
in the distance, in the early part of the morning. 
Here and there we passed a patch of land which had 
been cleared by the Arabs, and twice we saw their 
burial-grounds, surrounded with bushes of the camel 
thorn or wild jujube, which makes an excellent fence 
against every animal but the camel. 

There is a caravanserai about eighteen miles from 
El Borj where we had intended to breakfast, and 
before we arrived, its appearance had been anxiously 
looked for both by myself and the tirailleur, who was 
like ourselves going to Mostaganem and accompanied 
us on foot. This poor fellow had not had even the 



-218 A rEVEE-STKICKEN CAEAVAN SERAI. 

solitary cup of coffee with whicli a guest is dismissed ; 
but he kept up merrily with us, cracking jokes with 
the spahis, and occasionally acting as interpreter be- 
tween me and them. When at last we rode into the 
caravanserai, not a soul came to take our horses, and 
presently a poor woman as yellow as a guinea made 
her appearance, and said piteously in reply to my 
demand for something to eat, " Monsieur, tout le 
monde est malade : il n'y a rim." Everything we 
saw confirmed her statement. The whole building 
looked as if it had been attacked with fever, so 
shaky and dilapidated was it, with several windows 
broken, and one leaf of the gate off its hinges. I 
was hungry enough to have eaten my own horse ; but 
there was no alternative but to mount and proceed 
ten miles farther. Fortunately we had for the last 
hour been clear of the mountains, and were no 
longer confined to the shuffling walk which is the 
usual pace on a long journey. As we cantered over a 
broad flat plain in the middle of which was a shallow 
river to be forded, we saw several encampments of 
nomad Arabs, and the surface of the country was 
thickly covered with their herds feeding upon the 
young grass. Another range of low hills was crossed, 
and brought us to another plain of similar character, 
and on descending from the broken ground which 
bounded this, we found ourselves on a regular road 
which the Government are making from Mostaganem 



ENDURANCE OF AFRICAN SOLDIERS. 219 

along the southern side of the valley of the Cheliff 
by the hands of the military. The lieutenant, whose 
horse took the lead when we started from El Borj, 
had announced to me his intention to go on to 
Mostaganem without stopping; but the brisk pace 
at which we had proceeded after leaving the fever- 
stricken caravanserai had taken a good deal out of 
the steed, and he fell into the rear some time before 
we reached the village of Aboukir, and was well 
content to stop and breakfast there with me. The 
poor tirailleur had been thrown out by the rapidity 
of our advance, but nevertheless he caught us up 
before we had finished our meal, as good humoured 
and merry as ever, although he had come twenty- 
eight miles (and most of it over very rough ground) 
without tasting a morsel of food. I ordered him 
some coffee with my spahis, and when we started — 
which was within half an hour of his arrival — he 
appeared again as fresh as a lark, and performed the 
remaining eight miles to Mostaganem without exhibit- 
ing the least sign of fatigue. Yet I do not think he 
was at all above the average of the seasoned African 
soldier. 

In the remaining part of our journey, the defined 
plateaux one below the other which had characterised 
the earlier portion, were succeeded by gentle undula- 
tions. Cultivation is almost continuous in the neigh- 
bourhood of the road after passing Aboukir, and in 



220 MOSTAGANEM. 

the immediate vicinity of Mostaganem it is carried to 
a high point. There, too, are several country houses 
to be seen, occupied by rich Arabs, and surrounded 
with well-irrigated gardens. This is a circumstance 
which tells much for the security afforded by the 
French rule; for so long as the war with Abd-el- 
Kader lasted, this neighbourhood was the scene of 
continual warfare. A melancholy relic of the times 
which had so recently passed away met my eye in one 
of the plains which we had crossed this morning, in 
the shape of a human thigh-bone lying on the grass. 

Mostaganem may be described as a mihtary settle- 
ment built upon a hill just over the old Arab town. 
Two regiments of infantry and one of cavalry are 
regularly stationed there, and of course this produces 
a good deal of consumption of all kinds. There is a 
place filled with cafes, two or three hotels, and a few 
shops; but except for the demand created by the 
presence of the military force, and the Government 
employes, all would fall into decay. The shops are 
generally kept by Jews — probably the representatives 
of the original camp-followers — and the cultivation 
of the country in the neighbourhood, when it is 
not eff'ected by the Arabs, is carried on mainly by 
Spaniards. These are wiUing to work at forty sous 
a day, while the French labourer grumbles at receiv- 
ing only fifty. The French of this class think the 
presence of the Spaniards a great evil ; but they are 



ILL SUCCESS OE FRENCH SETTLERS. 221 

far more industrious than the others ; and a Guernsey 
man whom I stumbled upon accidentally, who had 
long kept a shop in Mostaganem, declared that if it 
were not for the Spaniards, the colony could not last 
six years. The women-servants are almost all of that 
nation, and are said to be much more honest than 
the corresponding class of French women. But the 
common French colonist is almost sure to be either 
a bad subject, or a ruined man whose friends have 
made a purse to set him afloat in the colony, and get 
him out of their way. He comes and loiters about 
on the coast tiU he has spent almost all his money, 
and when he has at last got his grant in the interior, 
he is obliged to borrow to maintain himself while his 
crop is growing. In this way mortgages spring up, 
carrying interest at ten or fifteen per cent. ; the first 
unfavourable season the creditor forecloses; and the 
land passes thus into the hands of some money-lender 
in the towns, who lets it to a Spaniard or Mahonnais, 
There is a good deal of speculation in grain ; and the 
poor colon generally enters upon his career of ruin by 
merely mortgaging his crop, which is then sold as 
soon as it is reaped, at the very time when prices are 
lowest. The corn merchants know that all, or next 
to all the corn in the colony is so sold ; and, accord- 
ingly, raise the price artificially during the interval 
which elapses before the next harvest. A great 
number of Maltese have made large fortunes by 



-222 STATE OF MORALS. 

speculating in this manner. When the ruined man 
can return to France, he always does so, but he often 
leaves behind him the female members of his family ; 
and with a large military population their fate may 
easily be guessed. 

The state of morals appeared to me lower at 
Mostaganem than at Algiers, — perhaps from the want 
of that indirect influence which the tone of society of 
Government House supplied at the latter place. One 
little trait of manners is worth relating. The land- 
lady of my hotel, apparently a widow-lady, who re- 
tained some traces of having once been handsome, 
was sitting in her bureau, Hstening to the civil 
speeches of a middle-aged officer, when I entered to 
obtain some information. There was also present her 
daughter, a girl of fifteen or sixteen, who sat busily 
engaged with a book. I had had occasion to call 
upon an official person of some rank, and my plans 
were put out of joint by the circumstance of not 
finding him at his office. " Ah I il est probablement 
chez sa maitresse/' was the straightforward explana- 
tion of my hostess, tendered without the least spice 
of sarcasm. "Qui est sa maitresse?'' asked the 
young lady, raising her eyes from her book. I 
turned to her in some surprise, and then observed 
that the subject of her study was a volume of George 
Sand. The mother simply answered, " Marie 
L informed me that the gentleman I wanted 



VISIT TO MAZAGRAN. 223 

would no doubt be at his bureau by nine the next 
morning ; and both the ladies at once returned to the 
occupations which my entry had for the moment in- 
terrupted. A French labourer, with whom I had 
some conversation on the subject of his earnings, 
declared positively that the reason why the Spaniards 
of his class were preferred to his own countrymen 
was, that they invariably emigrated to Africa with 
their families, and that the female part at once 
formed connexions with the employers of labour, and 
then used their influence to promote the interest of 
their brothers and fathers. I did not altogether 
believe in his theory ; but I thought from all I saw 
that his facts were not to be rashly rejected. At the 
same time there is society in Mostaganem, as I can 
testify from personal experience, where the polish and 
wit of continental Europe is combined with the tone 
of an English family ; but the circle which answers 
to this description is a narrow one, and not likely to 
exercise any influence beyond its own limits. 

Very near to Mostaganem, on the road to Arzew, is 
a village called Mazagran, whither I went in search of 
some Roman remains which I had been told existed 
there ; but, after a diligent search, I found nothing of 
the kind. Mazagran, however, is remarkable as the 
scene of a brave defence made by some Erench 
soldiers against an attack of Arabs, in Eebruary, 
1840. They were only 123 in number, and occupied 



- 224 FRENCH FEAT OF ARMS. 

a small fort, which was suddenly attacked on all sides 
by nearly 2,000 of the enemy. The attack was in- 
cessant during four days ; and the garrison, finding 
themselves too weak to defend the whole of the fort, 
withdrew into a single redoubt, which they success- 
fully maintained, losing — strange to say — only a 
single man. But three-fourths of their assailants 
were cavalry ; and the chief hope of the attack seems 
to have lain in the belief that want of water would 
cause the garrison to surrender. There was how- 
ever, fortunately, a well within the redoubt. 

The late French dynasty thought proper to com- 
memorate this feat of arms by a memorial, somewhat 
disproportionate to the acknowledgment which other 
deeds, even more remarkable, had received. A public 
subscription was entered into for the purpose of 
placing a monument on the very spot which had 
been so immortalized. With the produce of this a 
communal school is erected in the very redoubt which 
was the last hope of the besieged, and hard by a 
Corinthian column is surmounted by a statue of 
France surveying the scene with admiration. This is 
not all. A church is built close by the fort, bearing 
the inscription on its fagade, " Get edifice a ete con- 
struit avec le produit d'une souscription nationale 
en commemoration du fait d'armes de Mazagran." 
But unhappily the subscription not being sufficient 
for all these different objects, it was determined not 



AN ILL-FATED MONUMENT. 225 

to build a new church, but to convert a mosque which 
stood there into one ; and this is the real history of 
what appears. It is to be hoped the Arabs of Maza- 
gran are not attentive to omens : for otherwise what 
has followed must induce in them the expectation of 
a Nemesis hanging over their conquerors. Only 
about a fortnight before I was there, the frame on 
vrhich the organ was placed gave way, the organ fell, 
and as I looked in I saw the v^hole of the church 
filled with rubbish. I believe that really the founda- 
tions had been undermined by water ; but such was 
not the view taken by my cicerone. "Voila, Mon- 
sieur/' said he, " comme tout s'est fait en Algerie des 
le commencement. L'architecte vole, Tentrepreneur 
vole, les ouvriers volent, tout le monde vole." It was 
very providential that the misfortune did not happen 
during service ; as else all the Christian children in 
Mazagran v\^ould have been buried in the ruins, their 
seat being under the organ-loft. I went into the 
communal school, where I found only nine boys and 
eight girls. Two of the former were natives : but 
the master informed me that the Arabs exhibited 
great unwillingness to send their children, although 
they are well aware of the advantages they will gain 
in qualifying themselves for Government employment 
by learning the French language. The master com- 
plained of the effects of " the fever " in diminishing 
the numbers of his scholars ; and it seems that this 

Q 



- 226 SOUK-EL-MITOU. 

scourge has been more than usually virulent in the 
province of Oran during the last summer. Mosta- 
ganem, where it was previously unknown, had suffered 
from it. 

I devoted one day to visiting Souk-el-Mitou, a 
village which overhangs the river Cheliff, at about 
seventeen miles from Mostaganem, and the same 
distance from the embouchure. Here too I was 
informed Roman remains existed. But although 
there are remains of a fortification of considerable 
extent, these are not Roman, but of the same time 
and constructed by the same builders as the ruins at 
Tlemgen. They appeared to me likely to have formed 
part of a palace of some sultan of Mostaganem ; and 
it is not impossible that their likeness in point of 
material to the waUs of the Mansourah led the Arabs, 
in their traditionary account of the building of the 
latter, to introduce the name of such a person. Con- 
siderably below these walls in the side of the hill 
is a fountain surrounded with trees, the water of 
which is collected in a square stone basin which 
may possibly be of the Roman period. In front of 
it is the largest olive-tree I ever saw, resembling 
in form a pollarded oak. The stem separates into 
four branches,^ the circumference of two of which 
I estimated at six feet six inches and eight feet six 
inches respectively. I have no doubt the tree is 
nearly 2,000 years old, and it is still vigorous, and 



ENORMOUS OLIVE-TREES. 227 

throws out new stems from its roots. Just at the 
entrance of the village on the Mostaganem side are 
likewise some very large olive-trees, but they are 
equalled by some I afterwards saw near Bona. It was 
very hot weather when I visited the Roman fountain — 
about like an August day in England — although only 
the 16 th of March, and I was enabled to enter into 
the feelings with which this locality (probably sacred 
to Pan and the Nymphs) Avould have been sought 
during the heats of summer in the old pagan times. 

Souk-el-Mitou is, like all the other villages in this 
province, built within the enceinte of a loopholed 
wall ; but this is already falling down from decay ; 
and although the site was doubtless originally selected 
without any regard for sanitary advantages, it is a 
healthy and prosperous settlement. I should couple 
it with Cheragas in the central, and Jemappes in the 
eastern province, as places where the inhabitants 
are really contented with their lot, and apparently 
have reason to be so ; although even here I heard 
complaints of interference on the part of the 
Government in matters of detail, which had much 
better have been left to the colonists themselves. 
But the description given me of the fertility of the 
soil was almost incredible. It is fruit that is chiefly 
cultivated, and I was told of pes|ches the size of a 
child's head, pears weighing more than a kilogramme, 
grapes, figs, pomegranates, and olives in perfection, 

Q 2 



- 228 VALLEY OF THE CHELIFE. 

and, in short, everything whicli could move the 
desires of a horticulturist. I have, indeed, no doubt 
that, blessed with a soil something like that of the 
Brohlerthal, and an unlimited supply of the most 
delicious vrater, the sloping gardens of Souk-el-Mitou 
are a veritable temple of Pomona. 

Two or three miles from Souk-el-Mitou, on the road 
to Mostaganem, is another village of very much the 
same kind, called Ain Tedeles, the inhabitants of which 
have grants of land that run down towards the 
southern bank of the ChelifF. I should very much 
have Hked to explore the valley of this river along the 
whole of its east and west course as far as the neigh- 
bourhood of Milianah, where it is crossed by a bridge, 
as it is here by one three or four miles below Souk-el- 
Mitou. The aspect of the country indicates great fer- 
tility, the mouth of the Cheliff must in ancient times 
have been an important port, and I have little doubt 
that in this interval of about one hundred miles 
between the two bridges interesting traces of Roman 
civiHsation (of the time of the Antonines) would be 
found. At Mostaganem, while paying a visit to 
General Hugo, the commandant, I observed an ancient 
tunmlary stone in the vestibule of his house, and 
requested permission to copy it. As I was engaged 
in this operation an aide-de-camp came in, and said 
that two other large stones were lying face to face in 
the street hard by, which possibly had inscriptions on 



TRACES OF THE EMPEROR HADRIAN. 229 

tliem ; and the General politely ordered them to be 
turned for my inspection. The one proved to be a 
mere complimentary inscription to the deceased Em- 
peror Antoninus, and therefore probably set up imme- 
diately after the accession of his adopted successors, 
Aurelius and Verus (a.d. 161); but the other, which 
was unfortunately much mutilated, was of a more 
important character. It was obviously intended as a 
tablet to be put up over the gateway of a town, on the 
occasion of either this, or some new street, being 
thrown open. The Emperor Hadrian had bestowed 
some special mark of his favour on the occasion — 
what, unfortunately, the injuries the stone has sus- 
tained prevented me from ascertaining — and the year 
was A.D. 127 or 128. The efforts of Hadrian were, 
as is well known, directed to the renovation of the 
provinces of the Roman empire and the development 
of their resources. Four years before the tablet of 
which I am speaking was put up, a new road from 
Carthage to Theveste (the modern Tebessa) had been 
completed under his auspices,* and the reverse of his 
coins often bears the title of " Resti tutor Africse." 
There seems no doubt therefore that the work referred 
to in the tablet (whatever was its exact character) 
formed a part of the general plan for improving 
the communications between the most important 

* This appears from an inscription found at Carthage, which is 
printed by Shaw. 



230 CARELESSNESS OE ERENCH ANTIQUARIES. 

points in Northern Africa from Cyrene to the Atlantic, 
of which the so-called Antoniue Itinerary gives us the 
results. I was exceedingly vexed at not being able to 
learn the exact locality in which this interesting relic 
had been discovered. General Hugo believed it was 
brought from the lower bridge of the CheliflP, at the 
time that excavations were making for its construction, 
but it was not possible to obtain any certain informa- 
tion on the subject. It is exceedingly to be regretted 
that the remains of antiquity which the French are 
continually discovering should not be carefdly pre- 
served, and if they are removed from their site, that a 
well authenticated record of this should not be kept. 
At present no thought is taken for anything of the 
kind. Collections are made here and there, but no 
note is taken of the places from whence the objects 
collected have been brought, — as fruitless a proceeding 
as that of forming a museum of fossils without 
observing the geological strata from which they were 
derived. Even with reference to the development of 
the resources of Algeria, a correct knowledge of the 
Roman routes would be extremely valuable ; for those 
conquerors of the world had an eye for sites and 
communications which is rarely found in our days. 
If the matter were brought under the notice of the 
reigning Emperor of the French, whose position is not 
altogether unlike that of Hadrian, he would scarcely 
fail to recognise an opportunity of furthering the 



VISIT TO ST. LEU. 231 

accomplishment of a wise policy in his African 
dominions, while contributing to the extension of that 
knowledge of antiquity for which France (as the 
Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions witness) was 
once distinguished above all other nations. 
But alas 1 

Dixeris hsec inter varicosos centuiiones, 
Continuo crassum ridet Yulfenius ingens, 
Et centum Grsecos curto centusse licetur ! 

A diligence leaves Mostaganem for Arzew every 
morning at three o'clock, and my friends advised me 
to go by this as far as St. Leu, a village which the 
French have built near the site of the ancient Arse- 
naria, the ruins of which I proposed to visit. The 
road is the same as that to Oran, until within a mile 
or two of arriving at Arzew. It runs through the low 
ground near the sea-shore from within a very short 
distance of Mazagran, and although not by any means 
so bad as the route to Tlemcen, is of the same 
character, so that we several times had to quit the 
main track, and proceed across the country for some 
distance. We crossed El Makta^ as the lower Habra 
is called, very near to the sea, and two or tliree miles 
below the place where the terrible defeat of General 
Trezel by Abd-el-Kader took place, which has been 
described above. The mouth of the river is, in the 
summer, altogether sanded up. At about nine o'clock 
I was put down half a mile from St. Leu, and the 



^ 232 EEIVIAINS OE ARSENARIA. 

diligence proceeded to the modern Arzew, wliich 
previously to the French occupation bore the name of 
El Mersa (the port), and in fact was no doubt the 
harbour of the ancient Arsenaria, which stood on an 
elevated plateau about five miles to the east of it. 
The walls of Arsenaria are distinctly traceable along 
the north side of the ancient site; and in following 
these I came upon a subterranean chamber which 
probably was a cellar or warehouse. By excavation 
some remains would possibly be found, and no doubt 
many mosaics laid bare ; but there is now nothing on 
any great scale standing above-ground, as there seems 
to have been in the time of Shaw, who describes some 
arches which he saw as having the appearance at first 
sight of belonging to an aqueduct, but without any 
channel for the conveyance of water. The French 
have laid bare the foundations of one house which 
must have stood in the suburbs of the old town, and 
have placed within the area a few capitals of columns, 
and other fragments of sculpture which have been 
found. But all of these are of very low times, and 
some of the meanest execution. There are several 
tumulary stones among them, but most are un- 
mistakeably pagan, and none apparently Christian. 
Yet Arsenaria appears among the list of African 
bishoprics. It happens m.ost unfortunately that in the 
midst of what must have been the area enclosed by 
the city walls, an Arab tribe is located, who as usual 



DIFFICULTY OF SEAECHIXG. 23a 

liave made use of the ruins to construct huts for 
themselves. A close investigation here would pro- 
bably bring something to light ; but such a thing is 
not possible for an European, whose motives would 
be altogether misinterpreted by the jealous denizens 
of the huts. 

I had intended to remain for the night in the new 
town of Arzew, but having completed my survey 
of Arsenaria soon after mid- day, I w*as induced to 
change my plan, and endeavour to push on to Oran 
the same afternoon. In order to do this, it was 
requisite to obtain horses from the Arabs ; and there 
being no official of the Bureau Arabe at so small 
a place as St. Leu, this would have been a matter 
of considerable difficulty, had I not fortunately made 
the acquaintance of a French settler who spoke the 
native language. This man, although quite uneducated, 
seemed to take a great interest in my inquiries for 
Roman remains. He left his garden to join me in 
my exploration of the locality, showed me everything 
which had been found, and w^as extremely delighted 
when I explained to him the meaning of the inscrip- 
tions and symbols on the fi'agments of stone. He 
told me that at first there was a good deal of jealousy 
of the settlers on the part of the Arab tribe ; but that 
gradually they got used to each other, and were now 
very good friends, so that the French used often to 
pet the Arab children. By the aid of my new friend. 



- 234 MOUNTAIN OF LIONS. 

I succeeded in hiring a horse and a guide ; but when 
the two made their appearance, I really repented 
having changed my intention of remaining for the 
night at Arzew. The former was a miserable looking 
animal, like the starved pony of a bankrupt coster- 
monger, with a bridle half chain, half plaited rushes, 
and the latter a black half negro Arab, barefooted. 
However, miserable as an Arab horse may appear, he 
is always sure to possess great endurance ; and this 
wretched looking creature, which seemed to stagger 
with weakness as I got on his back, carried me and 
my bag, which I had to put on the pummel of the 
saddle, into Oran, a distance of more than twenty- 
five miles, without stopping. It is true that nearly 
seven hours were occupied in the performance ; but, 
on the other hand, the animal walked more briskly 
forward at the end than at the beginning of the 
journey. 

The first nine miles of our course lay through a 
plain covered with pasture, and a few bushes here 
and there ; but afterwards we began to ascend the 
neck of that mountain mass, terminating in Cape 
Ferratt, of which the Mount of Lions is the highest 
summit. We passed through a region thickly covered 
with brushwood, but I observed no traces either of 
wild swine or lions, which Shaw remarked in this 
region. In the highest part of our path, there 
appeared now and then a few patches cleared and 



HAESH TREATMENT OF NATIVES. 235 

held by Maltese. But the bush continued, with few 
interruptions, until we got within half-a-dozen miles 
of Oran, where the country appeared admirably 
cultivated, and bearing corn-crops. On all sides of 
Oran, these appeared to me better, and the land 
cleaner, than any I had up to that time seen in 
Algeria.* 

The military road from Arzew to Oran turns the 
mass of hills over which I had passed to the south, 
and runs near the Sebkah of Arzew, the sight of which 
I missed through the love which the Arabs have 
for taking the old track rather than any new one. 
Perhaps one reason for this preference is that, by so 
doing, they see less of the European settlers, who 
continually treat them with harshness and insult, 
which they dare not resent, but at the same time 
feel very bitterly. I have more than once seen the 
driver of a carriage purposely guide his horses in 
such a way as to compel a party of camels to step 
into the fields by the side of the road, in order to 
avoid him. These poor animals are extremely apt to 
strain themselves in climbing over a bank, which they 
do in a panic to avoid the strange machine which 
they see bearing down upon them. A curse always, 
and not seldom a blow with the whip, is certain to be 
bestowed upon any muleteer or ass driver who is 

* This was before my visit to Great Kabylie, described in an 
earlier chapter. 



236 



SEBKAH OP AKZEW. 



slow in clearing his animals out of the road. These 
are the sort of influences which neutralize, to a great 
extent, the efforts of the higher ranks of the adminis- 
tration ; and it is to be feared will long prevent the 
possibility of retaining the African provinces without 
the support of a large army. 

The Sebkah of Arzew is of much smaller size than 
that of Oran ; but its deposits are infinitely richer; 
In the month of July it is generally quite dry ; and 
the carts and mules which come to fetch the salt pass 
freely over the surface. Its extent is about seven or 
eight miles in length by half as much in breadth. 
The salt is of the best quality, and is from three to 
five feet in thickness. The marshes round about it 
are extremely favourable to the fattening of horned 
stock, probably from the impregnation of the soil 
with salt. 

I returned from Oran to Algiers by a merchant- 
steamer which had arrived two or three days before 
from Malaga. She was a very slow boat, and horribly 
dirty ; and the captain had had but httle experience 
of that part of the Mediterranean. The wind being 
sHghtly from the north, he thought it imprudent to 
keep near the shore, and consequently the return 
voyage added nothing to my knowledge of the coast. 
The only incident which enlivened the voyage was the 
falling in with two or three shoals of porpoises, not 
rolling with the tub-like movement which characterises 



EETURN TO ALGIERS. 237 

them in the neighbourhood of the shore, bnt in 
full pursuit after small fish, at which they sometimes 
leapt seven or eight feet, as a trout does at a fly. 
Two or three gulls followed the course of the shoal, 
hovering above the leading porpoise, to pounce upon 
its panic-stricken prey if opportunity off'ered. One 
shoal came so close alongside the ship, and followed 
her course so exactly, that I was tempted to try 
whether I could not hit one with a pistol while 
leaping : but no sooner had I brought the weapon 
on deck than, either from accident, or because (as the 
sailors asserted) the porpoises smelt the powder, the 
whole disappeared instantly, and did not show them- 
selves again for some hours. 

We did not arrive at Algiers until between nine 
and ten at night ; but little did I expect this circum- 
stance to prevent us from landing. Such, however, 
was the case. It was necessary we should be approved 
by the officer of health ; and this functionary does not 
exercise his powers after sunset, except in the case of 
the mail-steamers. Accordingly, we were obhged 
to make up our minds to endure the dirt and discom- 
fort of the filthy steamer for another night. The 
submission with which all the French passengers 
acquiesced in this stupid piece of official pedantry 
quite amazed me. But they showed their wisdom in 
so doing ; for remedy there was none. In England 
the certain result would have been an indignant letter 



- 238 NOTE ON THE KOUSKOUS. 

to the Times ; but I should like to have seen the face 
of the editor of the Algerian Aklibar on receiving a 
similar communication. However, early the next 
morning " la sante " made his appearance, and re- 
moved the spell which bound us. I went at once on 
landing to take a warm bath, and was fortunate 
enough to carry nothing away with me from La 
Henriette but unpleasant recollections, and a fixed 
determination never again to renew our acquaintance. 



Note to Page 214. 



The kouskous is prepared in several different ways, but the sub- 
stratum is in all cases the grain of fine wheat, which after having 
been crushed is rubbed by the hand, previously dipped in water, on 
a flat stone, till it presents the appearance of a small round seed like 
millet. This is simmered over a slow fire with oil, or else the fat 
from the tail of the broad-tailed sheep. Kich people vary this simple 
dish by putting figs and raisins in the^ mess, and pouring cold milk 
or cream over it. Sometimes it is filled with cubes of mutton or 
kid's flesh, or even pieces of chicken, which have been previously 
boiled. It is flavoured with salt and pepper ; but that which 
specially characterises it is the rancid taste from the fat or oil with 
which the grain is stewed. 



VISIT TO EASTERN PROVINCE. 239 



CHAPTER IX. 



Algeria is more than almost any country de- 
pendent on the sea for its communications. The 
littoral may be described in general terms as an 
aggregation of small provinces, insulated from each 
other by mountain ranges of difficult passage. These 
are formed by the several parts of what is called the 
Northern, or Little Atlas. It is not so much a chain 
of mountains as a chain of buttresses, supporting the 
northern side of an elevated plateau, which extends 
over a space of various breadth, but always consider- 
able, to the south. The southern boundary of this 
plateau is formed of a similar chain of mountain- 
buttresses, which appears on the maps under the 
imposing title of the Great Atlas, although, except in 
one part, its summits are by no means so high as 
those of the so-called Little Atlas. This latter starts 
from the sea-board of Algeria, just to the west of 
Bougie, and runs west-south-west, forming, first of 
all, the craggy mass of Great Kabylie, in the 
southern portion of which are the peaks of Djerjera, 



- 240 THE ATLAS RANGES. 

already so often mentioned. Continuing its course at 
a diminished elevation, and throwing off from itself 
those lower hills which form the valleys of the Sebaou, 
the Isser, and the Boudouaou, and are crossed by the 
road from Algiers into Kabylie, the Little or 
Northern Atlas attains its extreme southern point 
shortly before it reaches the meridian of Algiers, from 
which its direct distance is there about fifty miles. 
It now takes a turn to the west-north-west, closely 
approaching the sea in the neighbourhood of Cher- 
chell ; and after two more sweeps of similar shape 
but smaller extent, it terminates at Cape Ivi, the 
northern boundary of the Cheliff", at its embouchure 
near Mostaganem. 

The Great, or more properly Southern Atlas, starts 
from the seaboard at Cape Roux, which is the 
boundary of Algeria towards Tunis, and runs in a 
general west-south-west direction quite into the 
territory of Morocco. It is supposed by geographers 
— although it has never been accurately traced — to 
terminate in a mountain mass on the shores of the 
Atlantic, of which the most fabulous accounts were 
prevalent in antiquity, and to which the name was 
given which has since been extended to the whole 
series of elevations. So far, however, as it is com- 
prised within the limits of Algeria, which it divides 
into two nearly equal portions, the Great Atlas is not 
a chain at all. Its mountainous character is confined 



' THE MIDDLE ATLAS. 241 

to a peculiar assemblage of craggy elevations, sixty or 
seventy miles in diameter, called the Aures, situated 
between the meridians of 5° 45' and T east. Here 
the peaks are some of them 7,000 and 8,000 feet in 
height, and one has been estimated at no less than 
9,373 feet. But to the west of this boss, the moun- 
tainous character of the Southern Atlas is much less 
clearly marked. It assumes, for the most part, the 
features of a high plateau with irregular elevations ; 
but it retains throughout one important characteristic, 
namely, that the streams which issue from its southern 
side all lose themselves, sooner or later, in the sands 
of the Desert. 

The Middle Atlas is a name that has been given to 
two ranges which may be described as connecting the 
Northern with the Southern Atlas. The one of these 
leaves the former a few miles to the north-east of the 
point noticed above as being the one where it is 
farthest removed from the seaboard, and takes a 
course nearly due east, with only one gap in the 
rampart which it forms, until it meets the Southern 
Atlas between the Aures and the sea. The other, 
rising direct from the south-west bank of the ChelifF, 
where that river takes a turn near Medeah, sweeps to 
the south-west, and ultimately strikes the Southern 
Atlas at an acute angle considerably within the 
boundary of Morocco. Thus, if the Northern Atlas 
be regarded as constituting the two sides of a 

R 



242 ELEVATED PLATEAU. ' 

depressed triangle of whicli the seaboard is the base, 
the lines of the Middle and Southern Atlas may be 
described as forming another larger triangle of similar 
shape, but in exactly the opposite position. 

This distinction of the mountains of Northern Africa 
into separate ranges, has, it should be observed, no 
foundation in their geological character, which is 
identical for all. It is, however, a convenient distri- 
bution for the purpose of giving a general idea of the 
pecuharities of the region which they intersect. It 
has been remarked that all the drainage to the south 
of the Great Atlas is ultimately lost in the sands of 
the Desert : it may be also noted that the whole of 
that from the northern sides of the Little and Middle 
Atlas finds its way to the sea. But with the streams 
which spring from the southern inclines of the Middle 
and the northern inclines of the Great Atlas, — in 
other words, with the internal waters of the larger of 
the two triangular areas just mentioned, — the case is 
much more complicated. There are two, and only 
two, outlets for these. The first is furnished by the 
river Chelifi"; the second by the river which at its 
embouchure (between Djidjelli and Cape Bougaroni) 
is called Oued-el-Kebir (the Great River). If the 
channel of the former were to be interrupted by a 
dyke in the neighbourhood of Medeah, and that of 
the latter to be similarly intercepted in the neighbour- 
hood of Constantine, the whole of the space between 



REGION OF MARSHES. 



243 



the Middle and the Southern Atlas would be con- 
verted into an immense lake.* Whatever vi^atercourses 
between these two ranges do not fall into one of the 
two streams just mentioned, necessarily find their 
termination in marshes and pools, which vary greatly 
in their dimensions at the different seasons of the 
year, and tend — partly by the rank vegetation which 
under such circumstances soon forms a jungle, partly by 
the miasma which an all but tropical sun evokes from 
the exposed mud — greatly to curtail the space over 
which human industry can be profitably employed. 
To that portion of Algeria in which the soil is subject 
to the conditions just described, the French give the 
name of Landes, These landes, or elevated steppes, 
constitute a kind of middle link between the Tel, or 
hill country, and the Sahara, the former of which 
may be regarded as universally susceptible of culti- 
vation under favourable circumstances, and the latter 
as altogether hopeless. 

Two points have been mentioned as marking the 
only outlets existing for the waters of the central 
portion of Algeria. The extent of surface drained 

* The state of things here supposed may be illustrated by the 
condition of the plain of Thessaly before the gorge of Tempo was 
formed ; by that of the plain of Bohemia antecedently to its drainage 
by the present channel of the Elbe in Saxon Switzerland ; by the 
basin of the Rhine between Basle and Bingen previous to the con- 
vulsion which tapped the vast accumulation of waters by forming 
the channel which now extends from St. Goar to the Drachenfeis ; 
and_^by several portions of the valley of the Rhone. 

R 2 



244 DRAINAGE BY THE CHELIEE. 

through the westernmost of them by the different 
afHuents of the CheHff, is about the same as that of 
the lower basin of the same river, after it has passed 
the narrow space which divides the Little from the 
Middle Atlas near Medeah, and commenced its west- 
ward course to the sea. Between the meridians of 
1° 15' and 3° east, a large number of considerable 
streams from the north-west, west, and south-west, — 
but much fewer and less important from the eastward 
— unite their waters and run nearly in a north-east 
direction until they reach the outlet in question, 
where the river first acquires the name which it 
thenceforth bears. Both to the east and the west of 
this upper basin of the Cheliff, the land rises so as to 
form two new watersheds. The westernmost of these 
converts the whole of the space between itself and the 
junction of the Middle and Great Atlas in Morocco 
into one vast system of pools, while the easternmost 
does the same for the greater portion of the remaining 
space. But a small part of this forms an exception. 
The Oued-el-Rummel (River of Sand) finds its way 
through a tortuous split of enormous depth in the 
limestone rock, where the capital of the eastern pro- 
vince of Algeria; Constantine — the Cirta of Jugurtha 
— stands on a horse-shoe shaped peninsula, with preci- 
pitous sides formed by the ravine in question. By 
this river an area of moderate size in the high 
grounds south of Constantine is drained of its waters, 



DIPEICULTY OF COMMUNICATION. 245 



and itself, subsequently augmented by several tribu- 
taries which take their rise in the Little Atlas, finds its 
way into the sea under the name of Oued-el-Kebir.* 

The difficulties of land communication between 
Algiers and Constantine will be obvious from the 
above description. The direct route lies through the 
pass of the Biban, the passage of which by the Erench 
army has been adverted to above. f It is never travelled 
except by Arabs, or by Europeans from motives of 
curiosity. Communication for practical purposes is 
effected entirely by sea, through Philippeville, at 
which place steamers which leave Algiers for Bona 
every ten days, always touch. There is also a weekly 
service between Marseilles and Philippeville, by which 
the voyage is performed in about three days, the 
growing importance of the eastern province rendering 
a direct communication with the mother country a 
necessity. I embarked at Algiers, on the 30th of 
March, in a steamer which was engaged, if the 
weather permitted, to stay some hours at Dellys, 
Bougie, and Djidjelli, thus giving an opportunity of 

* This river is the Ampsaga of Pliny, the western boundary 
according to him of the Numidia of Massinissa. The name is 
obviously a native word with a Latin termination, and is, probably, 
a Kabyle root. Bochart says that ap/isacA signifies "amplus" in 
Arabic. If this be a word adopted by the Arabian invaders, and not 
brought by them from their primitive settlements, the modern 
name Oued-el-Kebir (Great Eiver) will appear to be neither more nor 
less than the translation of aphsach or amsach, the latter of which 
would be a mere dialectal variety of the former. 

t Page 119. 



246 DELLYS. 

seeing the settlements on the coast without trouble. 
We arrived off Dellys after about six hours' steaming 
in the calmest weather, and there I recognised from 
the sea the mountain to the north of Tizi-Ouzou, 
which when there I had felt a desire to climb, in the 
conviction that I should have a good sea-view from it. 
Dellys is on or near the site of an ancient town, 
probably Rusucurium, to which the Emperor Claudius 
gave the Roman franchise. Ancient coins and am- 
phorae were discovered in digging the foundations of 
a military hospital; and just before I left Algiers, a 
marble sarcophagus, with a bas-relief in excellent 
condition upon it, had been brought from thence. 
From the subject of the bas-relief, it would seem as if 
the corpse the tomb contained had been that of 
a physician, and perhaps a Christian. I did not hear, 
however, of any inscription having been discovered at 
the same time. The style of execution seemed to 
me to indicate a date not higher than the time 
of the Antonines. Shaw speaks of the existence of 
considerable remains near Dellys in his time;* but, 
unfortunately, the approach of night rendered it 

* He speaks of the native town as " built out of the ruins of a 
large city at the foot of a high mountain, that looks towards the 
north-east. The ancient city, which appears to have been as large 
as that at Temendfoust (Cape Matifou), spreads itself quite over the 
north-east side of this mountain, upon whose summit, to the west- 
ward, there is a great part of the old wall, besides other ruins, 
promising, at a distance, a large scene of antiquities." — Travels, p. 88, 
ed. 1738. 



BOUGIE. 247 

impossible for me to land to examine the locality ; 
and it may very well be the case that in the con- 
struction of new buildings by the French since the 
year 1844, when they took possession of the place, 
the ancient walls have disappeared, as they have done 
at Bougie and Hippo. 

At a little before eight in the morning we came to 
an anchor in the harbour of Bougie, and I forthwith 
went on shore. The commandant, Colonel Augeraud, 
to whom I had letters, was kind enough to mount 
both me and a friend who accompanied me on two of 
his own chargers, in order that we might see as much 
as possible of the place during the few hours which 
alone we had to give to it. The beauty of the bay 
is remarkable. It rather reminded me of the Gulf 
of Spezzia, which, however, is inferior to it in the 
grandeur of the mountain forms. We rode up to the 
top of a rock which stands out in the sea, and is con- 
nected by a narrow neck of land with the main. 
There is a lighthouse upon it, the base of which is 
830 feet above the sea. The light revolves in eight 
minutes, and is said to be visible at a distance of 
forty-eight miles. The path to this point is a zig-zag, 
sometimes cut out of the rock, and now and then 
artificially built up, which it would be a nervous 
business to ride up on any other horse than an Arab. 
But these sagacious creatures, though exhibiting 
unmistakeable proofs of their mettle on the road, 



248 ROMAN TOWNS ON THE COAST. 

became as tractable as lambs as soon as ever we got 
to a dangerous part. Colonel Augeraud told me that 
the vicissitudes through which Bougie had passed 
had obliterated all trace of ancient remains above 
ground, but that whenever excavations were made 
some trace of former times generally appeared. The 
neighbourhood, however, contained many objects of 
great interest to the antiquarian as well as the 
geologer; the iron mines in the mountains having 
been worked from very early down to quite recent 
times. Bougie is the Salda of Pliny and Strabo. 
It completely answers to the description of the latter 
as ''a great port," although it would only be such 
for vessels of the kind used by the ancients. It 
was once connected with Busucurium by two roads, 
the one of which passed along the coast, while the 
other went inland, probably between the Djerjera 
range and the northern bank of the Oued-el-Sahel, 
the former of which it turned, leaving it on the right 
hand as it regained the coast. Between these two 
roads would be included the whole of what is called 
Great Kabylie, then, as now, a highly fertile country, 
supplying large quantities of oil, honey and wax, 
cereals, and wine, the whole of which would readily 
find an outlet, either at Dellys or Bougie, by one or 
the other of the roads in question. 

From Bougie eastwards, the high mountains come 
close down upon the shore, but they recede con- 



DJIDJELLI. 249 

siderably in the neighbourhood of DjidjelH, which is 
only five or six hours sail. Its approach is dangerous 
on account of the proximity of a hidden shoal, called 
La Salamandre, from a French vessel which was lost 
upon it a few years ago. The dimensions of this are not 
ascertained with exactness ; but Avhen the wind blows 
ofi* the land, as it did on the occasion of my visit, a 
steamer can escape it by keeping close to the shore. 
To speak of either harbour or roadstead at Djidjelli 
would be a misnomer. There is a string of rocks in 
front of the place, on one of which a lighthouse is 
erected, and by uniting these a breakwater might be 
formed which would furnish some shelter. At pre- 
sent, nothing can look more dangerous than the port, 
there being no shelter at all, and the rocks just 
mentioned, which lie about a mile from the shore, 
suggesting, by the foam which breaks over them 
upon the least show of sea-breeze, what the result of 
a gale from the same quarter would be. We cast 
anchor off Djidjelli at eight o'clock at night in a 
perfect calm. But my barometer began to fall, and 
by six the next morning it had gone down four 
millimeters. At eight the wind began to get up, and 
soon afterwards the vessel rolled from the effect of an 
underground swell, the result of wind out at sea. 
The rocks to windward of us dashed the waves which 
broke upon them into clouds of white foam, and 
the sky began to look murky and mischievous. 



250 COLLO. 

Obviously, it was desirable that we should lose no 
time in getting up steam and securing a good ofSng. 
There had been fortunately very little to land, and 
nothing to take on board; the trade of Djidjelli 
consisting of little else than mihtary stores sent from 
Algiers, and a small quantity of wheat and barley, 
which is exported in small coasting vessels. The 
town, in fact, is nothing but a row of buildings 
subsidiary to the necessities of a military occupation. 
Its site is very inferior in point of beauty to that of 
Bougie, — the country around for a considerable dis- 
tance consisting of sloping hills, cultivated in several 
parts (though not continuously) until the ground 
becomes too steep. On weighing anchor we stood 
well out to sea, as the wind had greatly increased, 
and rain came on with mist and hazy weather. The 
ship was very light, and consequently rolled in a 
way to send almost all the passengers below, until a 
sufficient offing had been obtained to allow her head 
to be put to the north-east, when some sail was made 
on the foremast which produced something more of 
steadiness. After doubling Cape Bougaroni, our course 
was laid to the south-east, and we soon got into much 
smoother water. The atmosphere too cleared, and 
we were enabled again to benefit by our proximity to 
the land to observe the aspect of the shore. The 
mountains still appeared to come close down to the 
coast, except at CoUo, where a space intervenes 



ANCHORAGE OF STOUA. 251 

which is filled with small conical shaped offsets from 
the main range, like skirmishers thrown forward from 
a line of battle. Next to the Gulf of Bougie, Collo 
appeared to me the most picturesque spot on the 
whole coast. The point which is doubled just before 
entering the Gulf of Stora, in which Philippeville lies, 
is formed by two or three islands, which perhaps in 
early ages were united, in front of the mainland. 
A lighthouse stands on one of them, similar in posi- 
tion, but inferior in altitude, to the one at Bougie. 
There is no protection for ships at Philippeville, and 
the steamer dropped her anchor at Stora, about three 
miles off. From this point we proceeded in a row- 
boat to Philippeville, where the landing-place consists 
of nothing but a flight of movable steps hanging 
from a small temporary wooden pier. Up these it was 
no easy task to make one's way ; for they were beset by 
a crowd of Maltese and Arabs, ready to pounce upon 
every article of baggage, without the least regard to 
the inclination of the owner, and carry it off to any 
other quarter than its proper destination. But once 
landed, I found comfortable quarters in the Hotel de 
Prance, a house not fifty yards from the landing-place, 
kept by a retired officer of the army. My apartment 
was a small one, but it was perfectly clean, and com- 
manded a noble sea-view; and the attention of the 
people of the hotel left nothing to desire. 

Philippeville occupies the site of an old Roman 



252 



REMAINS OF EUSICADA. 



town (Rusicada), of which some considerable remains 
exist. The most important are the cisterns, by means 
of which the modern town is supphed, as the ancient 
one was, with an abundance of excellent water. The 
reservoir appears to have been originally a large oval, 
which was afterwards divided into seven cisterns by 
longitudinal partitions. Each cistern is arched over, 
and has a door at both ends ; and when these are 
opened, the effect of the hght let in upon the water 
and reflected from it is extremely curious. It is 
impossible not to fancy that the fluid all comes 
through a circular tunnel at the end of each cistern ; 
whereas in fact the whole are supplied by a single 
fountain at the side of the oval reservoir. This spring 
did not appear to me particularly strong ; but it is 
said never to fail even in the driest summer. The 
cisterns were said, by the keeper of the reservoir, to 
be 9.30 metres (nearly 30 feet) in depth. The 
diameter of the arch which covered them did not 
seem half as much. 

Next to the cisterns, the remains of the ancient 
theatre are the most interesting relic. Advantage was 
taken of the side of a hill in scooping out the cavea, 
or pit, of which nearly the whole is preserved, and if 
cleared of rubbish would make a fine ruin. Unfortu- 
nately, on the very place where excavations would be 
sure to lay open the orchestra and stage, a house has 
been erected for the communal school. The walls of 



ANCIENT RECOUDS OE VULGARITY. 253 

the proscenium were found in digging its foundations. 
In the area occupied by these ruins are collected 
various relics of the Roman times, — fragments of one 
or two statues, capitals of columns, and several 
inscriptions, a few of which are tumulary stones. 
Among the last I did not see a single Christian one, 
although the degenerate style of the decorations of 
the theatre, as well as the emperors' names on the 
inscriptions, indicate very low times. One of the 
last- mentioned w^as intended as a piece of flattery to 
the Emperor Caracalla. In the year when it was 
put up (a.d. 215) he had come from Antioch to 
Alexandria ; and doubtless it was expected by many 
that he would continue his progress through the 
north of Africa. This prospect would not fail to 
stimulate the ingenuity of such provincials as desired 
to recommend themselves. It was on the cards that 
the emperor might go to the play at Rusicada, and in 
default of better entertainment might listlessly read 
over the inscriptions which met his eye; in which 
case some small crumbs of favour might be cast to 
those who showed how anxiously they desired them. 
In the monumental records of this time throughout 
North Africa, nothing is so striking as the proof 
which they afford of a vulgar lust for petty dis- 
tinctions, accompanied by an entire disregard of the 
means by which these might be attained. One man 
puts up a monument to his patron, by whose favour 



254 NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PHILIPPEVILLE. 

he had been enabled to fill the offices of his town at 
an earlier age than the law permitted ; another makes 
the same public acknowledgment to his, on behalf of 
his son. But the most common form of a mean 
ostentation is, for the holder of a provincial dignity to 
proclaim to the world, that, in addition to the pay- 
ment which he had agreed to make in consideration 
for the honour, he likewise gave something or other 
to boot, the money value of which is carefully set down 
on the stone which has handed down the memory of 
the whole transaction to posterity. 

The country in the immediate neighbourhood of 
Philippeville, on the road to Constantino, is flat, but 
both to the east and west of this plain the hills rise 
steeply ; and to go direct by land, either to Collo on 
the west, or Bona on the east, is only possible on 
horseback. I rode eight or nine miles out on the 
way to Collo, under the guidance of a spahi, whom 
the commandant of Philippeville, Colonel Lepasset, 
had politely placed at my service. We reached a 
col, not less (I should think) than 1,200 or 1,800 feet 
above the sea, by paths winding in terraces up the 
mountains, here covered with a rich underwood of 
laurustinus, arbutus, myrtle, lentisque, and a small- 
leafed laurel, which at this time (the first week of 
April) was in flower, and filled the whole atmosphere 
with perfume. There was also a large quantity of 
the yellow genista of Spain and the south of 



CIVIL AND MILITARY TERRITORY. 255 

France, and, more remarkable than anything else, a 
gigantic heath, rising to the height of six or seven 
feet, and bearing a beautiful white flower. Out of 
this underwood cork-trees rise, and in it one heard 
birds singing, and no frogs croaking— both rather 
remarkable phenomena in Algeria. The ravines are 
exceedingly steep, and in order to ascend them the 
path is obliged to wind in all directions. Besides 
the spahi who was our guide, another had been 
ordered to attend us, as I was accompanied by a 
friend. This man not being forthcoming when we 
started, galloped after us, and when I first caught 
sight of his grey horse and scarlet bournous among 
the foliage, it seemed as if he was coming to meet 
us. The col mentioned above commands an exquisite 
view. To the east-north-east lay Philippeville, and 
the route by which we had come from it : westward 
we looked on the cape which forms the western 
boundary of the Gulf of vStora; while inland there 
were the mountains and valleys inhabited by the 
Kabyles, of which we saw three or four villages in 
the distance. At the point where we halted, is the 
limit between what is called civil and military terri- 
tory, — in other words, between the locaKty in which 
ofl'ences are cognisable by the ordinary tribunals and 
that in which the only appeal is to martial law. A 
short distance before we reached it, we saw a Kabyle 
girl gathering sticks on the side of the mountain. 



256 PANIC OE A KABYLE GIRL. 

As soon as slie observed the European dress, she 
screamed out, threw down her bundle, and plunged 
into the thicket. The scanty population of these 
parts is apparent from the circumstance, that in the 
whole of this ride the only human beings we saw 
were two Spaniards cutting wood, three Arabs with 
mules, a fourth (a very old man) that we passed, 
sitting on a lump of quartz rock that stuck out of 
the road-side, and this Kabyle girl. The underwood 
furnishes excellent shelter for the wild boars which 
abound there, as appeared by the traces left by their 
tusks upon the roots of the trees ; and the spahis told 
me that every fine evening there was a hattue of 
them. 

On our return, after having got back about half- 
way home, we left the regular track, and, turning 
down a steep path, rode through a Kabyle village. 
The only living creature visible at first, was a half- 
naked child, with its neck hung round with amulets. 
The little imp set up a scream, being obviously much 
alarmed, and some dogs began to bark, which brought 
half-a-dozen women out of the huts, the men being 
all away at work. The spahi soon explained to them 
that we intended no harm, and we proceeded on our 
course over ground so steep that, for a part of the 
way, the two soldiers got ofl* and led their horses, 
although they afterwards insisted, that for an Arab 
road, it was an extremely good one. At last, after 



DESERTED VILLAGES. 257 

crossing a brook, we ascended to a road which led 
into Philippeville by the other side of the ravine from 
Tvhich we had just emerged, and saw very near us the 
head of the fountain from which the PhiHppeville 
cisterns are supphed. 

The day after this ride, we took another in an 
opposite direction, to the eastward of the town. 
Here there were some attempts at European culti- 
vation; but, unhappily, fever is so prevalent in the 
plain, that scarcely any but Maltese cultivators seem 
to hold their ground. One Prench village through 
which we rode, — Damremont, — was all but deserted. 
The houses were in many instances tumbling down, 
and one rather large building, an asphodel distillery, 
had been actually shored up to prevent its falling. 
It was abandoned, though some apparently valuable 
plant, in the shape of vats, was still to be seen there. 
Never have I beheld such a picture of desolation 
as this village : but what must the character of the 
masonry have been, when houses fall to the ground 
within twenty years of their erection? We passed 
within sight of another village — Vallee — which the 
spahi said was nearly in the same condition as Dam- 
remont. Both the one and the other are between 
three and four miles from Philippeville, and are, 
or rather were — for, like Troy, they must be spoken 
of in the past tense — included in the same commune 
with that town. Philippeville itself has the reputa- 

s 



258 SITE OP PHILIPPEVILLE. 

tion of being comparatively healthy, but the plain in 
the rear of it has almost a worse reputation than the 
Metidja. All the sewage on the east side of the town 
is drained into open ditches by the side of the road. 
Into these ditches the sewers open at a distance of 
not more than 100 or 150 yards from the town gate, 
in the immediate vicinity of a corn-market which is 
built there ; and the stench which arises on the spot, 
and for several hundred yards of the road lower down, 
was, even at the time of the year I experienced it, 
insupportable. What it must be in the summer, it 
is difficult to imagine. 

The town of Philippeville is built within a sort of 
gap in the steep hills which form the margin of the 
sea. Both to the right and the left of the landing- 
place which has been described, these descend almost 
precipitously on the sea-side, but their slopes towards 
the land are more gentle; in these respects exactly 
resembHng the Sahel of Algiers. A good road has 
been made on the western side as far as the town of 
Stora. On the eastern the mountain is even steeper. 
It is crowned by the military barracks, which are 
built on an esplanade which has been artificially 
levelled, the earth removed having been thrown into 
the sea. With a great deal of labour a zigzag road 
has been conducted up to the barracks on the sea- 
ward face of the rock, and planted with trees where 
it was possible to gain some small extent of level 



EARTHWORKS MADE BY SOLDIERS. 259 

surface. This is intended for a promenade. It is 
a great pity that the site of the ancient theatre of 
Rusicada was not selected for this purpose : but the 
whole of the earthworks have been executed by the 
soldiers, without any additional pay ; and it was 
perhaps more easy to induce them cheerfully to 
devote themselves to a labour which seemed like 
an embelKshment of their own quarters. Before I 
left Philippeville, a dinner in the open air was given 
by the commandant to the whole force, as an acknow- 
ledgment on his part of the way in which they had 
executed their task. Unfortunately, I had made 
arrangements for visiting Jemappes, an agricultural 
colony about twenty-eight miles off, on the day on 
which this banquet took place^ or I should have been 
much interested in observing the spirit manifested by 
the soldiers towards their chief. If one may judge 
by the ready respect on the one part, and the con- 
siderate kindness on the other which were exhibited 
on ordinary occasions, it must have been excellent, 
and I was told that in fact it was so. One item 
of the bill of fare, as related to me, was curious. 
It consisted of 1,200 hares caught by the Arabs 
of the vicinity, who had been set to work for the 
purpose. 

The roadstead of Stora is tolerably good, being pro- 
tected from all winds except those between the north 
and east, and there perhaps it might be possible to 

s 2 



260 



A PORT WANTED. 



construct a port by means of an artificial breakwater. 
But from the absence of natural stone fit for the 
purpose, the expense would be enormous. An even 
greater obstacle exists in the circumstance that the 
hill descends so steeply in the immediate neighbour- 
hood, that there is no space for quays or ware- 
houses. The whole of the flat surface available at 
Philippeville for this purpose would not be sufficient 
for the business of an ordinary London wharfinger ; 
and yet Phihppeville is the natural, if not the only 
possible outlet for the produce of the province of 
Constantine, the richest portion of the possessions of 
the French in Africa. At present, whatever is ex- 
ported is embarked in barges at Phihppeville, and 
thus shipped on board the vessels lying at Stora. Of 
course the expense of freight under such circum- 
stances must be fatal to any extensive traffic. 

Jemappes, one of the few successful agricultural 
colonies of the French, dates from the year 1848 
only. Like almost every other village, it is provided 
with a loopholed wall, as a defence against any 
sudden attack of the natives, and its situation is 
on a low mamelon, in the midst of a very fertile 
plain, surrounded by hills as yet uncleared. The 
water is excellent and abundant, and the whole popu- 
lation appeared healthy, cheerful, and thriving. The 
inn in which I found quarters was a very humble 
one, but it was perfectly clean, and I got an excellent 



JEMAPPES. 261 

dinner, and every attention that I could wish. The 
population of the village is somewhat under 600. 
There are several Germans among them, and some 
Maltese, Piedmontese, and Spaniards ; but the bulk 
of the population is French. Whether it will long 
remain so is very doubtful, for althougb the locality 
is healthy, from the abundant water-supply and the 
hills around not intercepting the sea-breezes, and 
although the fertility of the soil is such, that the 
people seem almost amazed at it, the Frenchman 
always hankers after home. My host, who had not a 
fault to find with his position, and acknowledged that 
he had grown comparatively rich, told me that he 
did not intend to stay more than two or three years 
longer. Yet this is in every respect a prosperous 
settlement. The soil reminded me in appearance of 
the lower part of the valley of the Brohl, near Rolands- 
ecke on the Khine. The people say that it will 
produce anything whatever, and that as soon as 
ever a tree is put in, it seems to grow as by magic. 
Two crops of potatoes are produced annually, and 
three cuttings of tobacco. One man told me that 
100 mulberry-trees, on which he had expended only 
fifty days' labour, gave him a silk crop worth 4,000 
francs. The vine and the fig also thrive admirably : 
and I was informed that the sweet chestnut was the 
only tree which did not succeed. The only draw- 
back to the locality seems to be the scorpions, which 



262 



NUMBERS OF WILD BOARS 



are very numerous, and the wild-boars, which find 
shelter in the uncleared wood round about, and do 
much mischief to the grain crops, which are chiefly 
grown by the Arabs. There are also more lions 
here than in any other part of the province of Con- 
stantine except on the borders of Tunis ; but these 
animals are not looked on as an evil, for they keep 
down the numbers of the wild boars, which con- 
stitute their favourite food, and the consequence is 
that they are never attacked unless they do mischief 
to the cattle of the Arabs. About a month before 
I was at Jemappes two of these exceptional cases 
occurred. One, a very fine lion, weighed 243 kilo- 
grammes (about 530 lbs.). He was audacious enough 
to attack a herd in the full light of day, at half-past 
four in the afternoon, and kill two cows. Upon this 
the whole tribe turned out, and in three-quarters of 
an hour the ofiender had ceased to live. My host 
told me that his flesh tasted like beef, and that he 
had salted a piece of it, and sent it as a present 
to his father-in-law at Paris. The other lion was 
killed while following his legitimate pursuit, by an 
Arab boy of about fifteen years old. The latter had 
been watching a piece of green corn in the immediate 
neighbourhood of the wood, with a gun in his hand 
to shoot the wild swine who might be tempted by 
its proximity to their haunts. One of them appearing, 
he fired at it, and immediately afterwards heard the 



AND LIONS. 263 

roar of a lion, who was probably engaged in a 
common cause with himself. He immediately got 
up into a tree for safety, and reloaded his piece, 
and just as this was done the lion appeared under- 
neath, and roared at him. This was too tempting 
an opportunity ; he fired, and the ball entered the 
animal's mouth and struck a vital part, for he was 
found dead the next morning four or five hundred 
yards from the tree. 

It is the common belief of the Jemappes colonists 
that the lion will never attack a man unless he is 
provoked. On returning to PhiHppeville next day 
in the vehicle which performs the service between 
the two places — a sort of gardener's cart on two 
wheels and drawn by three horses — we had a curious 
proof of this. There w^re for our companions two 
Jemappes settlers, and the wife of a third. About 
a couple of miles from the village the wood of the 
uncleared hills comes doAvn very near to the road, 
and as we approached this, a large animal appeared 
standing in the middle awaiting our arrival. One of 
the two men broke ofi" the conversation which had 
been going on with the w^ords, — " Voila un lion!^ 

" Non^' said the second, cest un chien ; ah oui ! 
cest unjeune lion" 

" Oui,'' joined in the lady, " cest un lion ; il y est 
souvent!' 

The beginning of this discourse naturally awakened 



264 A DISAPPOINTMENT. 

unpleasant sensations in one whose leonine expe- 
riences were entirely derived from the Zoological 
Gardens ; but the end of it effectually changed them 
into a strong feeling of curiosity. The whole argu- 
ment had been conducted with the same entire 
absence of personal considerations, which would cha- 
racterise a discussion between two English farmers 
as to whether a green crop in the distance was wheat 
or barley; and I really regretted when it appeared 
that on this particular occasion the " habitual lion " 
had been replaced by an extremely large mastiff dog, 
who had apparently lost his master, and was watching 
in the most likely place to meet him. 

This little incident gave rise to another lion story, 
told by one of the Jemappes colonists. Two French 
soldiers, who had been in the village for some purpose 
or other, set off one day to proceed to El Arouch, 
a settlement on the road between Phihppeville and 
Constantine, to which there is a direct route from 
Jemappes by a path through the bush. They did 
not start together, and the one who commenced the 
journey first was much intoxicated. After proceeding 
some distance, in the course of doing Avhich he lost 
his sword, he felt himself overcome with fatigue, 
and stretching himself on the grass fell into a sound 
sleep. His companion, who was perfectly sober, fol- 
lowing after him a time, picked up his sabre, and at 
last found the slumberer on the grass. He gave him 



A SOCIABLE LION. 265 

a kick and called to him to get up, when, to his 
horror there rose up — not the man but a huge lion, 
that lay couched by his side, which he had taken 
for part of the trunk of a tree covered with grass. 
The sober soldier instantly ran off, under the 
impression that his comrade had been destroyed by 
the animal, after losing his sword in an unsuccessful 
combat with it; but the lion, instead of pursuing 
him, resumed his place by the side of the still sleeping 
man. After a time the latter awoke too, and got 
upon his legs, much astonished at discovering the 
company he had been keeping. The lion also again 
rose, but without any sign of ferocity ; and when the 
soldier set off on his route, accompanied him, walking 
close by his side for several miles, as far as the 
immediate neighbourhood of El Arouch, where, pro- 
bably because the forest there ceases, he turned about, 
and sought his old haunts again. 

Outside the walls of Jemappes a market is held 
once a week for traffic with the native population. 
Arabs come thither from the south, and Kabyles 
from the mountains on the coast. The latter manu- 
facture a rude kind of pottery, as well as small 
articles of smiths' work, and these are conveyed 
by the former on the backs of camels far into the 
interior. On my return to Philippeville at an early 
hour in the morning, I met several of these Kabyles 
on their way to the market with their wives. The 



266 ABYLE GALLANTRY. 

general practice is for the husband to ride and the 
wife to walk barefoot by his side ; but when the 
beast of burden has not too heavy a load, this 
relation is sometimes modified by taking the lady up 
behind. I scarcely ever saw it reversed. The Kabyle 
women not wearing veils, one was enabled without 
difficulty to see how very frightful they are, although 
they yield the palm of ugliness both to Arabs 
and Mauresques. They seem, like all savages, ex- 
tremely fond of ornament, especially of earrings, of 
which they wear four or five inserted in the same 
holes of the ears. These are enormous metallic rings, 
some four inches in diameter, and to prevent their 
weight stretching the ear down, they are made to 
hang by a loop of hair or silk twist passing over the 
head, which wholly or partially sustains them. 

Although the distance between Philippeville and 
Jemappes is only twenty-eight or thirty miles, and as 
much as twelve of these are coincident with the main 
road from Philippeville to Constantine, we were as 
much as seven hours both in going and returning. 
Of these, however, nearly two were passed at St. 
Charles in breakfasting and baiting the horses. This 
is a dreary-looking village, originally selected for its 
advantages as a military position near the confluence 
of two small rivers. I had some conversation there 
with a German labourer, who had formerly been a 
soldier, but had married the widow of one of the 



ARAB VICTIM OP rHENCH SWINDLING. 267 

concessionaires. She had lost five children by her 
first husband, as well as their father, from the fever, 
and had alienated the land which the latter had 
received, but she still retained the house, and lived 
in it. The second husband worked as a gardener, 
and said he found no difficulty in obtaining good 
employment as a labourer ; he generally had fever in 
the summer, but not badly. There is a roofless 
house of considerable pretensions standing on some 
high ground which overhangs the greater part of the 
village ; and this man informed me that it had been 
built by a speculator, who had obtained a grant of a 
large quantity of ground when the village was first 
established ; but that its completion had been put a 
stop to by the failure of this man, unfortunately not 
before he had succeeded in defrauding an Arab of 
consideration — the kaid of the district — of the sum 
of 2,000 francs, for which he gave him forged bills. 
The case was brought into court, and the swindler 
outlawed; but the poor Arab's money was irre- 
trievably lost. This transaction happened in the year 
1849, and the house is rapidly falling down. I fear 
that the original population of St. Charles cannot 
have been brilliant examples of probity, — for the 
landlord of the little inn where I breakfasted, one 
Joseph Spitery, was equally remarkable for the extor- 
tionate character of his charge and the bad quality of 
the food he supplied. There were two or three 



268 AN UNPROMISING DOMSTIC. 

loose fellows hanging about the house, one of whom, 
a Maltese, expressed a great desire to enter my 
service. He professed himself unable to get work, 
which for an able-bodied man in Algeria is exactly 
the same thing as proclaiming himseK a worthless 
vagabond. To be sure, the man's physiognomy was 
singularly forbidding, and other persons may have 
drawn the same inference from it that I did myself, 
— that neither my life nor property would be very 
safe with such a domestic. However, there was 
plenty of outdoor work to be done, for which no one 
would be very scrupulous in the choice of a work- 
man ; but for this my new acquaintance did not 
seem to have much taste, being desirous, as he said, 
of travelling and seeing the world. 



JOUHNEY TO CONSTANTINE. 



269 



CHAPTER X. 

The traffic between Pliilippeville and tlie interior 
of the province of Constantine is the most important 
in Algeria, and is daily increasing, from the growing 
disposition of the native population to devote them- 
selves to agricultural pursuits. Nevertheless, the 
road over which the whole of the produce of the 
country must pass to be embarked, is in a very bad 
condition, not from wilful neglect, but from an 
apparently irreparable deficiency of stone for metal- 
ling the smiace. During the summer it is traversed 
by an ordinary Prench dihgence daily, as far as 
Constantine; but in the rainy season the service 
is often interrupted. The amount of rain which 
falls on the northern coast of Algeria increases con- 
siderably as one goes from west to east ; a phe- 
nomenon for which I am quite unable to give a 
sufficient reason, but which is ascertained beyond a 
doubt.* The soil of the country, saturated with 

* Observations extending over five years gave for the annual 
rain-fall at Oran, 40 centimetres ; for that at Algiers, 81 ; and for 
that at Philippeville, no less than 120. 



270 VILLAGE OF ST. ANTOINE. 

moisture, clianges into deep mud, and effectually 
hinders locomotion. In default of stone for metalling, 
great efforts are made in parts of the eastern pro- 
vince to keep the routes in some sort of order, by 
flattening them with an iron roller of enormous 
weight. One of these machines, which I saw in 
operation a few miles from Bona, had no less than 
thirty mules harnessed to it. The cylinder was more 
than six feet in diameter, and worked in a wooden 
floor which had been heaped with stone to increase 
the pressure. It was impossible to turn it, and, 
therefore, means were provided for harnessing the 
animals to either end as occasion demanded. 

In going to Const an tine, the country in the 
immediate neighbourhood of the road presents the 
appearance of being well cultivated for a considerable 
distance from Philippeville. Four or five miles brings 
one to a little village, St. Antoine, which is, unlike 
its neighbours Damremont and Vallee, extremely 
prosperous. As at Jemappes, the water is plentiful 
and good, and the soil favourable to all products 
except the chestnut. There are thirty concessionaires, 
all French, whose grants were of not less than five 
hectares each; but, as elsewhere, the labourers are 
mostly Germans, Piedmontese, and other foreigners; 
and in course of time these will probably become 
tenants, the proprietors withdrawing into PhiHppeville, 
or even returning to Prance, and leaving the manage- 



PARISIAN COLONISTS. 271 

meiit of their properties to an agent. At El Diss, 
which is about nine miles from Phihppeville, the 
Arabs have become tenants of the French, paying 
their landlords a corn-rent of half the produce. 

The road for the first twelve or fourteen miles is the 
same as that to Jemappes, and for this extent and 
five or six miles farther, European cultivation appears 
to be going on favourably, and the clearance of the 
country to be proceeding steadily. The bush recedes 
every year farther from the neighbourhood of the 
road, as the requirements of the colonists for fuel or 
fresh soil increase. For a few miles, before arriving 
at El Arouch, it entirely vanishes, but at the latter 
place it temporarily reappears. This is the site of a 
fortified camp, which was established in 1844 to 
secure the communications of Constantine with 
Philippeville and Bona, to which latter place there is 
a packhorse road from this point, passing through 
Jemappes, which is about seventeen miles distant. 
It was on this road that the adventure related in the 
last chapter took place. Between St. Charles and 
El Arouch is the village of Gastonville, where the 
Republican Government, immediately after the revolu- 
tion of 1848, established an agricultural colony of 
Parisians. Such of these as remained naturally took 
to keeping inns or cafes, and their land is cultivated 
by Maltese and Spaniards. After passing El Arouch, 
the character of the country changes. It becomes 



272 GRAFTING OF WILD OLIVES. 

clear and open, with not a tree to be seen except the 
wild olive. The traveller is in fact entering upon the 
limestone which forms the substance of the plateau of 
the Atlas. Still, however, the cultivation of cereals 
goes on, and the. olive-trees are very generally 
grafted. Wherever this last is the case, it bespeaks 
an European proprietor or tenant. The grafting of 
the wild olive has only been introduced recently^ 
and nowhere, that I saw, has been adopted to any 
great extent, except in the Eastern province. But it 
has been extremely successful, and is undoubtedly 
one of the most likely means of developing the 
resources of the country: for there is no natural 
production to which the soil seems so universally 
favourable as the wild olive. The magnitude of the 
trees perfectly astonished me. They are often forty 
or fifty feet high, and in some localities attain the 
size of an elm of forty years' growth in England. The 
colour of the foliage too is very different from that of 
the Italian olive, being a much darker green. About 
two miles from Bona there is a grove of these trees, 
of such a size that I would not believe my eyes at a 
distance ; and took the pains of going np to them to 
make sure that I was not deceived. 

Erom El Arouch the ascent becomes gradually 
more marked ; and a short time before reaching El 
Kantour (the gap), the skilful hand of the engineer is 
visible in the terraces bv which the route is carried 



EL HAMMA. 273 

up the mountains to the pass by which the traveller 
enters upon the Atlas plateau. I estimated the 
height of the col at El Kantour at about 1,950 feet 
above the sea-level. Immediately after passing it, 
the road descends again to the level of 1,450 feet, and 
from thence as far as the neighbourhood of a point 
called El Hamma, where a hot-spring of great force 
bursts out of the ground, proceeds, rising and falling 
alternately, over a limestone soil, which is bare of 
every kind of tree, but in the vicinity of the road very 
often broken up and bearing fairly grown grain-crops. 
These are sown sometimes by Arabs, who are only 
partially nomadic; but more generally by Kabyles, 
who are altogether stationary, and much cleaner 
farmers as well as more industrious than their 
Mahometan brethren. Beyond the zone of cultivation 
stretches away the bare steppe, grey with the leaves of 
the wild artichoke dominating over the rest of the 
herbage with which it is covered. The view is 
bounded by low mountains of limestone, and the 
general appearance of the whole reminded me a good 
deal of many parts of Cumberland. 

The Hamma (Water) is something more than fifty 
miles from Philippeville, and about ten from Con- 
stantine. It is at the head of one of the cracks (so to 
speak) in the limestone stratum, which converge into 
the main split through which the Oued-el-Rummel 
bursts ; and the stream which issues forth falls into 

T 



274 APPROACH TO CONSTANTINE. 

the valley of the latter, after running only two or 
three miles. The change in the scene from the bare 
surface of the limestone steppe to the rich vegetation 
of the oasis caused by the Hamma, struck me very 
forcibly, as it was the first thing of the kind I had 
seen. Every kind of tree springs up luxuriantly ; 
among them the date-palm, the fig, and the pome- 
granate. The road to Constantine now begins regu- 
larly to descend, and at last, at about four miles 
before arriving, turns suddenly to the eastward, and 
the capital of the Numidian kings stands before us, 
on the noblest site, I should think, in the whole 
world. The descent still continues towards the bank 
of the Rummel ; and at its lowest point, when within 
a mile of the city as the crow flies, is between 900 
and 1,000 feet below it. The gigantic pedestal of 
rock on which the lordly Cirta is enthroned, is an 
island on all sides but its south-west, and on the 
greater part of that. The remainder is occupied by 
an isthmus, over which alone a wheeled carriage can 
enter the walls. On every other part the Rummel 
runs through a deep ravine, the sides of which are 
precipices, so nearly touching one another that here 
and there they are actually connected half-way down 
by a natural bridge of rock, 200 feet below which the 
river (a brawling brook in summer, but in winter a 
roaring torrent) rushes on to take its leap at the Falls ; 
while for an equal or greater height above, the blue 



NOBLE SITE OE THE CITY. 275 

limestone rises in perpendicular cliffs. The west side 
of the peninsula faces the valley up which the road 
passes ; and approaching it shortly before sunset, 
glowing under the rays of a setting sun, which at the 
same time poured floods of light through the rich 
vegetation of the valley, my companion and I agreed 
that we never had seen such a landscape. What must 
it have been, when the esplanade on the top of the 
rock was occupied by Doric edifices,^' instead of the 
frightful line of barracks which now crowns it ! 

The road which, after turning into the valley of the 
Oued-el-Rummel, has proceeded along its northern 
bank, crosses by the Pont d'Aumale, a bridge con- 
structed by the French immediately under the city, 
and winds up the hill by rather steep terraces to 
attain the isthmus on the southern side. This is the 
point at which the town was stormed in the suc- 
cessful attempt of October 13th, 1837. General 
Damremont, who had commanded the expedition, 
had been killed the day before, while visiting one 
of the breaching batteries, and the assault was con- 
ducted by General Valee. During the actual storming 
of the town, the inhabitants endeavoured to escape, 
but the only gate which afforded them the chance of 

* In the time of Shaw, some traces of these remained, showing 
the scale on which they were built. " Upon the brink of the 
precipice to the northward, there are the remains of a large and 
magnificent edifice, where the Turkish garrison is lodged at present. 
Four of the bases, each seven feet in diameter, with their respective 
pedestals, are still in their places." — R 126. 

T 2 



276 HOERORS OF THE STORMING. 

success was the one wliich opened on a bridge then 
standing, but destroyed two years ago, which crossed 
the ravine on the south-east side, resting upon the 
natural bridge of native rock which has been described 
above. But besides the narrowness of the outlet 
thus presented, the heights on the other side of the 
gorge were occupied by the French, and the wretched 
fugitives in their despair resorted to the frightful 
expedient of lowering themselves by ropes from all 
sides into the abyss below. Multitudes perished by 
these breaking ; and when the French at last became 
masters of the town, they were horrified at seeing the 
ravine heaped with mangled corpses of men, women, 
and children. The resistance was a desperate one, 
and Colonel Lamoriciere, who led the storming party, 
suffered severely from the explosion of a powder 
magazine at the moment when his efforts were being 
rewarded with success. 

The space through which the French advance upon 
the walls took place was occupied until 1836 by a 
fauxbourg, constructed mainly of old Roman mate- 
rials.* It was, from military considerations, destroyed 
in that year by Hadji- Ahmed, the Bey of Con- 
stantine, after the unsuccessful expedition of the 

* It must have been built within the previous century, for Shaw 
describes the site thus : — " The neck of land is about the breadth of 
half a furlong, being entirely covered with a series of broken walls, 
cisterns, and other ruins, which are continued quite down to the 
river."— P. 126. 



VAST REMAINS OE ANTIQUITY. 277 

French, as the circumstances of the first siege showed 
conclusively that the only vulnerable part of the city 
was this point. When I entered, the sun was just 
dipping, and several Arabs were performing their 
devotians among broken capitals of columns and other 
debris, which lay about on the edges of this neck of 
land. It was a strange spectacle of the vicissitudes of 
fortune, but only the first of many such that this inte- 
resting city presented. In the siege and since the occu- 
pation no less than 4,000 houses have been destroyed 
by the conquerors, and an arsenal constructed, with 
barracks for 10,000 men, in the Kazbah. In making 
excavations for this purpose, the ancient cisterns were 
discovered, which had probably remained concealed 
ever since the Arab invasion. They are built partly of 
tufo and partly of blue limestone, both of which exist 
near at hand, and they required no repair before 
being made available. So extensive are they, that it 
has been found necessary only to use half of them, 
and the remainder are employed as storehouses. But 
recently another discovery has been made of vast 
magazines in which corn was formerly laid up, spacious 
enough to contain a year's consumption for the whole 
population. These were being cleaned out at the 
time of my visit, and I did not see them. Wherever 
any excavation is made, old Roman work of some 
kind or other is found, and everywhere portions 
appear, built into the houses of the Arabs. In one 



278 THE CITY BY NIGHT. 

of the three mosques still standing there are fifty or 
sixty columns, no two of which are alike. All have 
been constructed of fragments of the Roman town. 
The walls of the Kazbah have been utilized as a sort of 
museum. Some of the numerous inscriptions which 
are daily dug up have been let into them, both 
inside and outside of the precinct ; and one sees the 
swarthy tirailleur indigene mounting guard under 
some police notice in the French language, flanked by 
a votive ofi'ering from a Roman freedman to the 
honour of his patron, or one from a military officer 
to the genius of a Roman emperor. I was fortunate 
enough to have letters of introduction to one of the few 
persons in Constantine possessing any taste for anti- 
quity — M. Cherbonneau, who is professor of modern 
Arabic — and, through him, not only to save the time 
which I must otherwise have wasted in seeking for 
objects of interest, but to enjoy much ampler means of 
communication with the natives than would otherwise 
have been possible. We made a tour of the Arab 
quarter of the town by night ; and M. Cherbonneau, 
who, from a perfect knowledge of the native language 
and a habit of doing little kindnesses for the people, 
seems to be extremely popular with them, was con- 
tinually stopped for a conversation. My companion 
and I excited a good deal of attention as Englishmen, 
being no less strange an object to the people than 
they were to us. The streets through which we 



THE BENI-MOZABITES. 279 

passed are even narrower than the Moorish portion 
of Algiers. Like them, they are filled with the low 
shops occupied by the tradesmen, but the commodities 
are of a much more various character, Constantine 
being, in fact, the entrepot for the whole trade of 
the eastern province. There is a perfect blaze of 
light from the enormous number of small wax-candles 
or oil-lamps with wdiich each stall is illuminated. 
One of the former is generally stuck in every sack of 
grain, or nuts, or other production which admits of 
such an operation, the mouth of the sack being 
always turned back to exhibit the article for sale. 

At one of these booth-like shops we stopped for 
a considerable time. It was kept by a Beni-Mozabite 
firm, the principal partner in which was extremely 
courteous, and treated us with cofiee. He had a 
great admiration for the English, as the EngHsh 
cotton manufactures, which are sometimes obtained 
through Morocco, are much more highly valued than 
the corresponding Erench ones. His appreciation 
of*the national character rose to a yet greater height 
when I showed him a knife of several blades, or 
rather containing several instruments, such as a cork- 
screw, a file, and the like. In his country, he said, 
such an article would seU for fifty francs, and he was 
astounded when informed that it had cost me in 
England Httle more than the tithe of that sum. Had 
I been returning home, I would certainly have made 



280 MAHOMETAN QUAKERS. 

him a present of the knife; but I was going into 
uncivihsed regions, where I expected to need it, and 
therefore resisted the temptation to establish the fame 
of Britain throughout the oases of the northern Sahara 
at the small cost of five shillings. 

These Beni-Mozabites are a most singular tribe. 
They belong to the aboriginal race, and their chief town 
is Gardaia, situate in about the thirty-sixth parallel 
of latitude, and directly south of Algiers ; but they 
constitute a sort of confederation of small republics 
in the oases of the neighbouring region. Ever since 
the invasion of Charles V. they have enjoyed great 
privileges at Algiers, having been incorporated there 
with an amin (or mayor) of their own, and enjoying 
the monopoly of the baths, as a reward for their 
services on that occasion. There are said to be no 
less than 1,500 incorporated members at this time 
among the stationary population of the town. But 
commerce is their most important pursuit, and they 
trade direct with Timbuctoo, Soudan, Morocco, and 
Tunis, as well as with Algeria. M. Cherbonne^u 
described them as " Mahometan Protestants and 
there is some justice in the illustration, although 
perhaps they might with even greater propriety be 
calkd Mahometan Quakers. They resemble the 
former, in the circumstance that they derive their 
religious views exclusively from the Koran, and alto- 
gether reject the fabric of traditional law and com- 



COMMERCIAL SPIRIT. 281 

plicated ritualism which has been superadded in the 
case of the tribes which came from the Arabian 
peninsula. But the most salient characteristic is 
their hatred of all forms. They never go to the 
mosques, or use any form of prayer. Like the 
Quakers, too, they have a great talent for money- 
making, and are scrupulously just. The word of a 
Beni-Mozabite is a perfect security. They travel 
about the country not only with wool of their own 
production, but often as factors for stationary mer- 
chants, who entrust them with goods to a large 
amount, and an instance of fraud is a thing unheard 
of. Their scrupulous honesty disposes them readily 
to place confidence in others, unless they have seen 
any reason against so doing. When the French first 
occupied Constantine, they wished to pay for the 
supplies of which they stood in need by bills. The 
Arabs would have nothing to say to these ; but the 
Beni-Mozabites at once entered into the spirit of the 
transaction, and took them without the least difficulty. 
As is often the case with scrupulously honest people, 
they are rigid economists, and never omit an oppor- 
tunity of saving a penny. In the course of con- 
versation it came out that I was going to Batna, 
and the chief Beni-Mozabite, who had just requested 
M. Cherbonneau to add an address in French to one 
in Arabic on a letter he had written to a corre- 
spondent in that place, immediately asked whether 



282 



AN ARAB WEDDING. 



I would take the letter, and save him the expense of 
postage, — a matter of twenty centimes. Of course 
I consented, and on arriving at Batna I sought out 
the other Beni-Mozabite merchant, and put the packet 
into his hands ; but it struck me that the confidence 
of my Constantine friend in the carefulness, not to 
say the integrity, of a stranger, was, in a mercantile 
man, at least as remarkable as his parsimony. How- 
ever, I suppose he argued from the sterling qualities 
of English merchandise to those of Englishmen, and 
I hope subsequent experience may never lead him to 
change his opinion on either subject. The second 
partner was a man inferior in intelligence to the 
principal, but equally disposed to be civil. " He 
knew all about England,'' he said ; " it was close to 
Morocco." I explained that Gibraltar, to which he 
referred, was only a distant settlement. " Of course," 
interposed the chief; that man is as ignorant as a 
camel. But what language are you speaking now ?" 
"Erench." "Don't the Enghsh speak Spanish?" 
" Very few, except the merchants that live in Spain." 
His idea was not, I fancy, that we had no language 
of our own, but were a bilingual people, as the Beni- 
Mozabites themselves are, using Arabic for com- 
mercial purposes, and their own tongue (a variety 
of Kabyle) for domestic intercourse. 

We were lucky enough in our nocturnal ramble to 
fall in with a wedding procession. The bride is 



TOMB OF PRiECILIUS. 283 

carried to the house of her husband on a mule, shut 
up in a box which prevents the smallest particle of 
her person from being seen. The procession is led 
by forty or fifty male friends or relatives carrying 
lighted lanthorns of coloured glass. After these, just 
in front of the lady, is borne a kind of chandelier of 
tapers and artificial flowers. A man follows her with 
a drawn sword to cut down any audacious ruffian 
w^hose imagination may be so kindled by the sight of 
the band-box as to produce an attempt to carry ofi" 
its contents ; and the whole train is closed by the 
bridesmaids all closely veiled, and from time to 
time uttering the shrill ly-ly4y, which has been 
traditional for millenniums.* 

One of the most remarkable objects of antiquity 
which has been brought to light is a tomb of imposing 
dimensions on the south-west side of the city, on a 
sort of terrace, under the escarped rock. It was 
built of brick, on a base of rock ; so that the moun- 
tain had, in fact, been cut away to allow of its 
erection. The shape is an oblong of about nineteen 
feet in length (in the direction of north by west and 
south by east) and ten in breadth. There were two 
stories; each was adorned with a mosaic floor and 

* The imagery of the marriage procession in Psalm xlv. indi- 
cates precisely the same customs. The chiefs daughter, " all 
^oxioyxs, within^'' i.e. decked out in a profuse magnificence beneath 
the covering which shields her from the eyes of the vulgar, is 
accompanied to her royal husband's palace by the virgins that be 
her fellows," with the "joy and gladness" of the hymeneal cry. 



284 PORTENTOUS LATINITY 

painted walls. The entrance to the upper story 
was effected by four stairs descending from its long 
side. No doubt there existed formerly a door at the 
top of these, but the whole of the wall in which it 
was cut, as well as the roof of the tomb, is now gone. 
The stairs descended externally on to a mosaic floor 
extending the whole length of the facade, to a breadth 
of seven feet. Another narrow strip of mosaic pave- 
ment started from the middle of this, and ran for 
about twenty feet, when it turned at right-angles, 
and apparently surrounded another mausoleum. The 
lower story, which is sunk in the native rock, was 
entered by a door in its short end. The mosaic 
floor of the upper tomb is almost entirely destroyed, 
but it may be made out that its border consisted 
of Maltese crosses, and at two of the corners are 
traces of a human figure, and an ornament com- 
posed of two fish. On each of two sides of the 
lower tomb are two semicircular niches, and on the 
third one, of about seven or eight feet in diameter. 
On the fourth side three sarcophagi are still 
lying. A fourth was taken from one of the niches, 
and on it is an extremely curious inscription, re- 
markable both for its portentous latinity, and the 
blunders of the stonecutter in executing it.* It is 

* I give the inscription exactly as it appears on the stone, without 
any division of the words. There are eight unequal lines, and two 
or three gaps : — 



OE A PROSPEROUS CIRTA BANKER. 285 

the epitaph of a Cirta banker, who hved to the age of 
more than a hundred years in the enjoyment of all 
the good things of this world, and without any draw- 
back except the misfortune of having become a 
widower, how long before his decease we are not 
informed. It seems, however, that the veteran money- 
changer resolved to undertake the task of recording 
his own good fortune, when he found that at last he 
was summoned to quit it, with an entire indifference 
to the fact that his school experiences had been more 
adapted for initiating him in the mysteries of his 

HICEGOQVITACEOVEIISTBVSMEA-TADEMONSTROLVCEMCLAB.APRVI 

TVSETTEMPOKASVMMAPE,AECILIVS01RTENSILAE,EARGENTARI 

AMLXIBVIARTEMTYDESIjS^MEMIRAEVILSEMPERETVERTTASOMNISOM 

NISBVSCOMMVNISEGOCVIlNONMISERTVSYBIQVERISVSIVXVRIASEMPERERVITVSCVJNr 

CARISAXICISTALEMPOSTOBITVMDOMINAEVALERIAENONINTENIPVDICAEVITAMCVMPOTVI 

GRATAMHABVICVNOONIVGESANOTAMNATALESHONESTEMEOSCENTVMCELEBRAYIEELICES 

ATVENITPOSTREMADIESVTSPIRITVSINANIAMEMPRARELIQVATTITTVLOSaVOSLEGISVIVVSMEE 

MORTIPARAVIVTVO-V-EQREVNAMNO-AMEDESERVITIPSASEQYIMINITALESEnCVOSEXORECTOVENITAE 

The old gentleman probably intended to write : Hie ego qui taceo 
versibus mea fata demonstro, lucem claram fruitus et tempora 
summa. Praecilius, Cirtensi Lare, argentariam exbibui artem. 
Fides in me mira fuit semper et Veritas omnis omnibus communis. 
Ego cui non misertus ubique ? Risus, luxuriam semper fruitus cum 
caris amicis, talem post obitum Dominse Yaleriae non inveni. Pudice 
vitam cum potui gratam habui cum conjuge sancta. Natales boneste 
meos centum celebravi felices. At venit postrema dies ut spiritus 
inania membra relinquat. Titulos quos legis, vivus mese morti 
paravi ut voluit Eortuna. Nunquam me deseruit ipsa. Sequimini 
tales : bine vos exspecto. Venite. — There is certainly not much to 
be said for his style ; but much of the grammatical regimen and of 
the inappropriate selection of words which will shock classical 
scholars was probably usual in the provinces. It is plain that at the 
time of Preecilius the final m of words was so little pronounced that 
an uneducated man would constantly put it where it did not exist, 
or leave it out where it did. After all, Marshal Saxe's French 
appears quite as strange to the eye as Prsecilius's Latin. 



286 



KABYLE MAEKET. 



craft, than in those arts which find favour at Eton 
and Harrow. Horace might have well had some 
such personage in his eye when he penned his well- 
known lines in censure of the education of the youth 
of his day.* In the remaining long side of the upper 
tomb is but one semicircular niche. It is near the 
southern end of the wall. At the northern end a 
corresponding one is replaced by a niche of a dif- 
ferent kind, as if for a statue, and the space left 
vacant is painted. 

A little below the tomb of Prsecilius is an esplanade 
upon which the Kabyle market is held.f It is 
partly surrounded by the huts of these people, 
to some of which there is attached a small plot of 
garden, scarcely so big as a moderate sized table- 
cloth, in which, by the help of plentifully watering 
it, they contrive to grow a few pot-herbs. In 
front of others lie little heaps of the wood which is 
used for dyeing the hands and feet of the women 

* Romani pueri longis rationibus assem 
Discunt in partes centum diducere. Dicat 
Filius Albini, si de quincunce remota est 
Uncia, quid superest 1 Poteras dixisse Triens ; Eu ! 
Rem poteris servare tuam. Redit uncia, quid fit ? 
Semis. An haec animos aerugo et cura peculi 
Cum semel imbuerit, speramus carmina fingi 
Posse linenda cedro, et duro servanda express© ? 

IJp. ad Pison. 325. 
f There is also a Kabyle market for oil within the walls of the 
town. It is brought in goat-skins, and the natives may be seen 
drinking it as an Englishman in the apple counties does cider. It 
is produced from the wild olive. 



RED SALT. 287 

a red colour, or lumps of red salt. This production 
is brougM from Milah, a day's journey from Con- 
stantine, but the rock which furnishes it is at Rad- 
gusie, about three leagues to the south-west of that 
place, Milah being merely the entrepot from whence 
it is dispersed over the neighbourhood, just as Stilton 
is of the cheeses which go by its name. It appeared 
to me to differ in nothing except its colour from the 
salt which is sold in England as Maiden salt. The 
Kabyles here were true to the character for industry 
which distinguishes them from the Arabs. Not a 
man was to be seen idle. Some were hammering 
bits for mules and asses, having husbanded for this 
purpose every particle of old iron they could find, 
so that their booths looked like so many fractions 
of a marine-store shop. Others were making bricks 
out of earth collected by the hand, moistened with 
water from a goat's skin. Of course, the results 
were very scanty, and it is almost inconceivable 
how such labour could support the artificer, even 
on the wretched fare which alone he requires, to 
which the diet of an English workhouse would 
be princely luxury. The Arab market is held 
higher up on the level of the gates of Constantino. 
There the aspect of the people is altogether dif- 
ferent. Tall impassive-looking figures stand about, 
wrapt in their long bournouses, or sit in a line 
on the edge of the hill, perfectly motionless, and 



288 BLIND BEGGARS. 

presenting from below the appearance of a string 
of great white crows. As the thoroughfare into 
the town passes across the space of which this 
market occupies a part, the scene is diversified by 
mihtary costumes, both European and native, among 
the latter the blue Zouave uniform of the tirailleurs 
indigenes predominating. If anywhere a close knot 
of people appears, they are probably listening to some 
blind singers, who, sitting on the ground, chant in a 
plaintive tone verses from the Koran, inculcating the 
practice of works of mercy. They are exactly the 
same people met with in Egypt, accompanying their 
ditty with a few notes on the flute ; and, if I may 
judge of their general success from what I saw in a 
few minutes, must, like all professional beggars, make 
a very handsome thing of their trade. One of the 
number who had the use of his eyes, continually 
went round among the crowd to collect, and like- 
wise ofiered for sale flutes such as those which were 
used by his companions. The leathern water-bottle 
of the Bedouin, which I never saw in the central 
province, here made its appearance very frequently, 
indicating the greater proximity of the waterless 
desert. 

Descending the hill below the esplanade on which 
the Kabyle market is held, the traveller finds a path 
which will conduct him to the bed of the Oued 
Rummel, just below the falls. In going thither, I 



EXTREME FERTILITY. 289 

had an opportunity of observing the dip of the hme- 
stone strata, in a quarry on the western side of the 
rock supporting the city. It is from north by west 
to south by east, at an angle of about 10**. The 
colour of the stone where freshly broken is blue, but 
the effect of weathering is to give it a reddish-brown 
tinge. The last part of the descent is a scramble 
down the sides of a ravine full of fig-trees, almond- 
trees, olives, vines, and pomegranates, wherever the 
sides are not too steep to permit cultivation. Nothing 
could give a more forcible idea of the extreme fertility 
of the soil. Small streams, either bursting out of the 
earth, or the waste water of some of the channels into 
which the stream of the Rummel is diverted, ran 
rustling among the herbage ; lizards of a bright green 
ever and anon darted across the path; the song of 
birds, chiefly the nightingale, filled the air, while the 
constant dash of the waterfalls made up a running 
bass. Where the ground was too steep for cultiva- 
tion, there were myrtles and the flowering broom, 
with a hundred other shrubs and flowers; and the 
ledges left in the midst of the craggy rocks of the 
ravine were covered with the prickly pear. Every- 
thing seemed instinct with life and full of the enjoy- 
ment appropriate to its nature. On arriving at the 
bed of the river below the falls, we saw a number of 
tortoises, which were basking upon a rock, plunge 
at once into a pool below them. The whole scene 

u 



290 EALLS OF THE RUMMEL. 

was sucli as might have inspired Lucretius for his 
description of the golden age. 

The Palls themselves were at the time I saw them 
but scanty, the bed of the river between the walls of 
the ravine above them being for the greater part of 
its breadth dry; but the enormous blocks of blue 
limestone, and of a conglomerate in which large 
pieces of the same limestone appear, which lay in 
the channel below, proved how different they must 
be, when the Oued-el-Rummel is swollen by rain. 
As a matter of beauty, however, the condition in 
which they appeared was by far the best. A boiling 
cataract would have altogether marred the surround- 
ing scene. The water takes two slight leaps, and 
then one of forty or fifty feet. The cliff of the rocky 
peninsula on which the city stands, comes sheer down 
to these, from a height of five or six hundred. It 
was formerly the practice to throw criminals down the 
precipice at this point. Such a mode of execution is 
altogether foreign to Arabian habits, and was pro- 
bably derived traditionally from the aboriginal inha- 
bitants of the country. It may have been in some 
way connected with another strange superstition, that 
the tortoises which abound in the pool below the 
Falls were evil spirits who inflicted fevers and other 
diseases upon the population, and required propitia- 
tion by human sacrifices. 

Above the Falls, a narrow path is cut along the 



GORGE OE THE RUMMEL. 291 

rocky side of the peninsula, for the purpose of giving 
access to an aqueduct which has been excavated 
within the side of the mountain, and conveys a part 
of the water of the Oued-el-Rummel to turn a mill. 
The aqueduct is probably of the Arabian times. 
After performing its office, the stream, or at least 
such part of it as is not diverted for the purpose 
of irrigation, forms another waterfall flanking those 
of the Rummel. From this path we descended into 
the bed of the river, and walked up the slope as far 
as the point where a dam is made for intercepting the 
mill-stream. Above us rose the towering cliffs of the 
peninsula and the main land, and we walked over a 
smooth floor of limestone with pools in it here and 
there, the Rummel having dwindled down to a mere 
brook rushing through the mid channel, shallow 
enough to be forded, but still so rapid that not a 
single pebble great or small was to be seen. We 
passed under two of the natural bridges which have 
been spoken of above. Under them, in holes of the 
rock altogether inaccessible by any means, numbers 
of jackdaws have built their nests, and probably other 
birds also ; for we saw throughout om^ walk, ravens, 
falcons, and white vultm^es, soaring above us. The 
last-mentioned bird is quite a distinctive feature at 
Constantine, and probably is necessary as a scavenger, 
for the Arabs always slaughter their cattle in the open 
air. The second of the natural bridges of rock is 

u 2 



292 BEIDGE DESTROYED. 

immediately over the head of the mill-stream. It 
would have been possible to proceed farther, but here 
the bed of the river is turned into a gigantic cesspool, 
the sewers of the town forming so many waterfalls of 
filth. All this is swept clear away as soon as a heavy 
shower of rain falls, so that the arrangement, however 
unwelcome to the tourist, is not altogether a bad one 
for the inhabitants. The third natural arch is of 
much greater extent than the other two, but Shaw's 
description of its dimensions is much exaggerated.* 
It is in fact the top of a tunnel of the length (as I 
should guess) of something less than a hundred yards, 
with gaps here and there from the effects of weather. 
Over it, at the southern extremity, was carried the 
bridge which was standing when the French took the 
town. It had been built in the latter part of last 
century by an Italian architect, and consisted of two 
stages of arches, one above the other, the lower one 
resting on a third substruction of the Roman times. 
The height of the whole was nearly 220 feet above 
the soil upon which it rested, that being itself nearly 
as many more above the bed of the river. The bridge, 
being found unsafe, was battered down by the French 
a year or two ago. This operation furnished a grand 

* " The river runs for near a quarter of a mile in a northward 
direction, through a rockj subterraneous passage, designedly laid 
open in several places, for the greater conveniency of drawing up 
the water or cleansing the channel." — P. 127. 



SIPHON OP THE AQUEDUCT. 293 

spectacle, and crowds were assembled to see it. 
Forty rounds of heavy cannon sufficed for the purpose. 
The substructions have been made use of as a base 
for the siphon of an aqueduct which brings water into 
Constantine. Standing on this, one sees the Rummel 
in the abyss below on one side ; but on the other one 
only hears it, as it is concealed from view by the roof 
of earth which covers the natural tunnel above men- 
tioned. It is, indeed, a w^onderful spectacle, with 
vultures wheeling over your head between the steep 
cliffs, and the Numidian stork standing fishing in the 
river below. 

The French, with a strange blindness to the peculiar 
character of this locality, after destroying the old 
structure did not replace it by a suspension bridge, 
which one would have thought must have at once 
suggested itself, but actually formed a causeway across 
the roof of the tunnel, and cut a series of inclines, — 
so steep that it is necessary to form steps in them, as 
in the streets of Algiers, — to enable baggage animals 
to descend to it. It is amusing to sit at the top of 
either side, and watch the crowds of mules, horses, 
and asses, and even herds of cows, passing up and 
dowm. The traffic is very great, for it is the direct 
route from the east to the west side of the valley of 
the Rummel, and to go any other way involves a 
circuit of two or three miles. Above the site of the 
bridge the ravine grows narrower, and at the point 



294 JEWS OF CONSTANTINE. 

where the crack begins I should doubt if the rocks 
were fifteen feet apart from one another. 

M. Cherbonneau has collected in a small garden 
near the Jews' quarter, all the ancient remains which 
are brought to him, there being no building appro- 
priated to their reception. After spending some time 
there one morning, I walked through this part of the 
town. It happened to be a Saturday, and the greater 
part of the population were sitting, dressed out in 
their best, at the doors of their houses. Several of 
the women were, for Jewesses, handsome; at least 
they appeared so in comparison with those I had seen 
in Algiers and the western province, and a few were 
very beautiful. These last had fair complexions and 
auburn hair — a type which at the time altogether 
puzzled me* — but the majority were dark. The 
Moorish and Jewish populations live on very good 
terms with one another in Constantine. They neither 
of them eat pork, and both are much engaged in 
commerce; and under the strong but impartial rule 
of the French neither can be jealous of the other. 
The old traditional habits of separation of course 
continue, but without implying any animosity. A 
Jew does not go to a Moorish cafe, nor an Arab to 
an ordinary one, simply because the customs of the 
two places are different, and productive of discomfort 
to those who have not been brought up in them. In 

, * See above, page 53. 



MAHOMETAN TEACHERS. 295 

Algiers tlie Jews were treated with great cruelty by 
the Moorish population before the French conquest; 
but in Constantine, from some cause or other, the 
beys appear to have pursued a more enhghtened 
policy, and there are no old grudges to revenge. In 
the latter place, too, the principal Mahometan muftis 
are men of learning ; and religious fanaticism is rarely 
engendered except in empty heads. To the mosque 
of Salah-Bey there is attached a kind of theological 
college, of such repute that students come to it not 
only from all parts of Northern Africa, but from every 
part of the Mahometan world. The professor, a fine 
venerable-looking old man, whom I saw delivering 
a lecture, is on the best of terms with M. Cherbon- 
neau, simply through the community of ideas produced 
by sympathy with one another's studies. 

A more unsatisfactory feature in the social condition 
of Constantine is the barrier which exists, and seems 
to be continually growing more marked, between the 
civil and the military population. The latter are 
collected in the barracks of the Kasbah, the dominant 
position in the town, and no civilian of whatever 
social rank is allowed to enter these without an order, 
unless on business to some of the official people. 
Some regulation of this kind may possibly be neces- 
sary, as a considerable portion of the troops are 
African; and the unrestrained intercourse of the 
native population with these would obviously be 



296 MILITARY AND CIYILIANS. 

undesirable. But that an European of respectability, 
and even a Prenchman domiciled in Constautine and 
well known, should be challenged by the sentry at 
the gates, bespeaks a necessity for constant vigilance 
which one regrets to find still existing. Colonisation 
can hardly go on with any activity when the new 
settler finds himself as a matter of course massed 
together with the subject population in his relations 
to the governing powers ; and, unless a very different 
spirit can be infused into the latter, there will at no 
long distance of time cease to be any French popula- 
tion at Constautine except such as live by ministering 
to the necessities or the pleasures of the military and 
the officials. 

Military government is undoubtedly a necessity in 
Algeria, but it is so simply in order that civilisation 
may grow up under its shelter ; and those who are in 
high office are fully sensible of the part which it has 
to play. But there can hardly be a greater difference 
than exists between the French military chiefs holding 
those positions which involve administrative talents, 
and the ordinary run of officers in what answers to 
our marching regiments. The drill and the military 
promenade are, in the latter case, varied only by the 
billiard-table and the dreary cafe. Night after night 
do well-educated young men meet in the same room 
of the same miserable hotel, and endeavour to kill 
time by the help of cards and dominoes, cigars and 



FRENCH SUBALTERNS. 297 

eau sucree. There seems to be none of that over- 
flowing energy which sends our idle officers to break 
their necks in steeplechases, and makes the vicinity 
of a pack of hounds an essential element in the esti- 
mation of country quarters. Almost everywhere in 
North Africa there is fair shooting. A man told me, 
that in the vicinity of the lake Aloula, near the tomb 
of the Christian Queen, he had himself killed 1,700 
woodcocks in three weeks. At Guelma, my landlord 
came in one day, after about three hours' walk in the 
immediate neighbourhood, and his bag consisted of a 
woodcock, two poules de Carthage, a bird about as 
big as a pheasant,* and nine quails. But when yau 
see a sportsman, he is sure to be a civilian, — perhaps 
a colonist, who had better be doing something else, — 
never a subaltern officer. For him, when not on 
duty, you must look in the Cafe des Officiers or the 
Cercle, and you will find him, with a cigar in his 
mouth and a glass of beer by his side, playing ecarte 
with a dirty pack of cards, or looking on at a couple 
of brother-officers so employed. How many English 
ensigns would willingly give two- thirds of their pay 
to be stationed in a country where they might be 
sure of wild-boar and jackals whenever they wished 
for a few hours' exercise, with every now and then 
the chance of a lion or panther. 

* This bird is probably the " Afra avis," which Horace couples 
with the " attagen" of Ionia, as a dish for the tables of the wealthy. 



298 



rUENCH SCHOOLS 



Such excitement, however, has no charms for men 
who as boys have never caught a cricket-ball or pulled 
an oar. The child is father of the man ; and the boy- 
hood which is passed in a French school is cramped 
and confined in all its movements. I visited the Lycee 
of Algiers, which is the highest school in Algeria, and 
one where the standard of education is nearly equal 
to that of our great public schools, except that the 
sciences occupy the same relative rank that classical 
studies do with us. The quality of the instruction 
was to all appearance excellent. I attended one 
lesson in French history and another on elementary 
hydrostatics, and in the latter was extremely pleased 
with the manner in which one or two of the elder 
youths explained the methods of ascertaining the 
specific gravities of solid bodies. But when I came 
to inquire what the boys did out of school, the 
defects of the system showed themselves. There is 
a minute subdivision with reference to age, and each 
of the classes " amuses itself" separately, under the 
surveillance of a master. There is no pretence what- 
ever that I could see at any known game. The chief 
sport seemed to consist in two or three boys suddenly 
falling upon another from behind, and weighing him 
down by hanging upon his neck. The numbers 
of the school are as great as those of Harrow, and 
the harbour of Algiers (independently of the bay) 
would, be an excellent place for eight-oared gigs 5 



WITHOUT BOYS' GAMES. 299 

but sucli a thing as boating for amusement is never 
dreamt of. The nearest ground on which cricket or 
football could be played is indeed more than a mile 
off, but still the Government might provide courts 
for hand-fives on the spot. On the heights over St. 
Eugene, I once found some of the boys of another 
school, which is under the superintendence of the 
clergy, feebly attempting a game of ball, as girls will 
do in England; but this was the only specimen of 
combined amusement which I witnessed during my 
sojourn in Algeria; and any satisfaction which I 
derived from the spectacle was much abated by 
meeting the same school on another day, when the 
boys were walking two and two, and almost every one, 
even to the ages of seventeen and eighteen, carrying 
a huge wooden cup and ball in his hand, with the 
practice of which he relieved the monotony of the 
promenade. 



300 



JOURNEY TO BATNA. 



CHAPTER XI. 



The road from Con stan tine to Batna regains the 
bare limestone plateau soon after leaving the former 
place, and continues with a gradual ascent throughout. 
The country passed over becomes monotonous after a 
time, but its first aspect is extremely curious. It 
consists of an undulating steppe, altogether bare of 
trees, but at this season of the year (the second week 
of April) covered with herbage. Where the surface 
is limestone, the predominating plant is the wild 
artichoke ; but where this is replaced by sand (gene- 
rally impregnated with salt), the wild artichoke dis- 
appears, and wormwood is seen in its place. In 
many parts the colours of the wild flowers in the 
midst of the herbage are very gay. The different 
sorts grow in large separate masses, so that from 
a distance a hill will look something like an English 
flower-garden, with patches of yellow, blue, and red. 
There can be no greater contrast than exists between 
the vegetation of the plateaux of the Tel and that of 
these steppes. The dwarf pine and the lentisque 



OULED-EAMOUM. 301 

have entirely vanished, as have all the liliaceous 
plants, and in their place are seen various grasses, 
overtopped either by the wild artichoke, or by a kind 
of thyme of a grey colour, which the camels and 
goats eat with avidity. 

The first post-station is Ouled-Eamoum, about 
eighteen miles from Constantine. As far as this 
point the road runs along the eastern side of the 
valley of the Bou-Merzoug, a little river, which, 
flowing from the south-south- west, falls into the 
Rummel just before the arrival of the latter at 
Constantine. The village, if it may be so called, for 
it contains scarcely a house, except two inns and a- 
gendarmerie station, occupies the site of a fortified 
post, but it only fills a very small part of the loop- 
holed wall which still stands. The appearance is 
melancholy in the extreme. One of the piers of the 
southern gate has been half knocked down by a wagon 
running against it; and so w^ll remain till it falls 
down altogether. Three or four miles farther is the 
point where the aqueduct which supplies Constantine 
with water takes its origin ; and soon after this the 
traveller reaches the region of the lakes which charac- 
terise the middle portion of the plateau of the Atlas. 
The first of these is nothing more than a large marsh, 
only very slightly saline, standing in the midst of a 
plain as flat as a cricket-ground, and covered with fine 
grass, like that to be seen on the South downs, where 



302 SALT LAKES. 

the clialk does not come up to the surface. I esti- 
mated the height above the level of the sea to be 2,455 
feet, being 1,317 above the Pont d'Aumale, vrhich 
crosses the Oued-el-Rummel just below Constantine. 
The route still continues, with slight rise and faU but 
on the whole ascending, till about forty-six miles from 
Constantine, when we stopped for our midday meal 
at a little inn, called from its situation the " Hotel des 
deux lacs." These are two lakes strongly impregnated 
with salt, and divided from one another by a bank of 
sand too loose for anything to grow upon it. The road 
passes along the side of the westernmost one, and I 
estimated its surface at 2,538 feet above the sea level, 
and about thirty-six below the " Hotel," which is 
placed, as it were, on the rim of the cavity that con- 
tains it. The salt is obtained without any trouble, 
being left on the bank as the water evaporates under 
the rays of the summer sun. Except for the water- 
fowl on the lake, the view is rather a gloomy one. 
There is a dreary monotony in the colour of the vege- 
tation which covers the surrounding mountains, the 
soil of which is probably highly saline. A few Euro- 
peans are living in the neighbourhood, employed by 
the contractors for the salt, but their huts are not in 
sight from the road ; and except the posts of the 
electric telegraph which are continued along here, the 
little inn is all that exists within many miles to remind 
the traveller of Europe. But the neighbouring steppe 



THE GRAZING SEASON. 303 

is no desert at this time of the year. Except just 
where the sand is loose and driving, it is thickly 
covered with herbage, and populous with the camps 
of nomad Arabs who come with their flocks and herds 
to eat this off. There are no longer any admixture 
of gourhis to be seen. The tent is the only form of 
dwelling. Neither are there any asses or mules, — the 
animals best adapted for the Tel, — nor many horses, 
but enormous flocks of sheep and goats, and herds of 
camels. Of the last we saw some not containing less, 
I should think, than 300 head. The young camels 
run by the side of their dams, and are extremely 
pretty little creatures, not being the gawky objects that 
the foal of the mare is, but the exact image in minia- 
ture of the full-grown animal, with all the sportive- 
ness and disposition to gambol which belongs to their 
age. The sheep and goats are not allowed to scatter 
themselves about among the herbage. Profuse as it 
is, the Arab knows he must economise it, and the 
flock drawn up in line like a regiment of soldiers, goes 
slowly on, eating all as it comes. Each tribe, and 
subdivision of a tribe, has its own separate area for 
pasturing, and the object is to make this carry as 
much stock as possible, the wealth of a pastoral Arab 
being derived from his wool. The number of douars, 
or nomad camps, in this region, is at this season very 
great. Erom the time of first entering upon the lake 
country to the reappearance of trees, a few miles before 



304 ARRIVAL AT BATNA. 

reaching Batna, we never lost sight of them ; and on 
one occasion I remarked three in view at once. Here 
and there, generally in the immediate vicinity of a 
mountain, a little cultivation of cereals goes on. The 
crop will be ripe by the time the herbage of the plain 
is consumed, and then the owner will reap it, and 
move off to the swamps formed in the bottoms of the 
larger lakes, which he will find covered with a coarse 
rank vegetation, and on this he will support his stock 
until the rains return in October. 

The journey to Batna lasted fourteen hours, and we 
did not arrive till past nine o'clock, although the 
weather was the most favourable possible. In the winter 
it commonly requires two or three days, and, after the 
fall of heavy rain, can be scarcely feasible at all for a 
wheeled carriage. This arises altogether from the 
difficulty of obtaining stone for metalling ; and it is 
an evil to which it seems scarcely possible to apply a 
remedy. At Batna there is only one inn (the Hotel 
de Prance) of the least pretension to comfort ; and it 
was quite full. The landlord wished to give my com- 
panion and me beds in the saloon, together with 
three or four other travellers ; and as in the conver- 
sation which ensued he displayed a good deal of 
insolence, I determined to try if I could not get 
quarters elsewhere. Most fortunately I saw a decent- 
looking woman standing at a door, who turned out to 
be a German, and in Africa I invariably found that 



A BAD LODGING. 305 

to speak to any person of that nation in their own 
language, gave me the command of their services. 
The good woman immediately made her husband 
come out and accompany me ; and under his guidance 
I succeeded, after some trouble, in getting a clean 
room in a little inn about the size of an Enghsh 
beer-shop. I was better off than my companion, 
who, after much suspense, was put into a back 
kitchen from which a servant-maid had been pre- 
viously expelled, and perfectly eaten alive. Great was 
my triumph the next day, not only on account of my 
better luck in this respect, but because I had obtained 
butter to my bread and milk to my coffee for break- 
fast, with both of which my friend had been obliged 
to dispense. In fact, although my landlord looked 
unpleasantly like a ticket-of-leave man from Lambessa, 
and the Hotel de I'Europe — the name by which he 
dignified his tenement — would hardly have procured 
him the elective franchise in an English borough, 
I was not at all uncomfortable during the three days 
I was his guest, although I took the precaution of 
barricading the doors — three in number — of my 
room, and sleeping with a night-light burning, and a 
loaded pistol by my side. 

Batna is the military position which secures the 
communication between Constantino and Biskra, the 
most southern position occupied by the French on 
this line. It is on the highest part of the plateau of 

X 



306 



PENITENTIARY 01^ LAMBESSA. 



the Atlas, at an elevation (according to my estimate) 
of 8,175 feet above the Mediterranean. From here 
the route southward gradually descends, being a 
repetition in an inverse order of that from El Arouch, 
reaching the break in the southern rim of the Atlas in 
about fifty-three miles, and from thence proceeding to 
Biskra, an oasis in the edge of the Sahara, which is 
ten metres (or nearly thirty- three feet) below the level 
of the sea, and distant from Batna about eighty-seven 
miles.* Beyond this extends the sandy desert as far 
as the eye can reach, interrupted only by the oases of 
palm-groves of which Biskra is the chief. 

About seven miles to the south-east of Batna, 
is the village and Penitentiary of Lambessa. It is 
situated on the northern flank of the Aures, probably 
300 or 400 feet higher above the sea-level than 
Batna, as, for the greater part of the way, the road 
regularly ascends. The Penitentiary is a large ugly- 
looking stone building three stories high; each, 
as well as the ground floor, being fitted up with 
solitary cells. During the day the prisoners work 

* A French gentleman, whose acquaintance I made at Bona, gave 
me the elevation of Al Kantara, the southern gap of the plateau, as 
406 metres, and that of Biskra as I have stated it. He had obtained 
them from an engineer with whom he had been travelling ; but he 
did not know when or by what means his informant had ascertained 
them, and of course there was no opportunity of comparing his 
instrument with my own. Nevertheless, after making all allowance 
for these drawbacks to exactness, sufficient data seemed to me to 
exist for giving an approximate section of the Atlas in this direction. 
Batna is about 138 miles from Philippeville. 



TREATMENT OF INMATES. 307 

together, without any particular check upon them, 
and in their leisure hours they amuse themselves 
with draughts or cards. They seemed cheerful and 
healthy; and in no one instance did I observe any 
trace of former fever, such as is common among the 
colonists of the Metidja. This is no doubt partly 
owing to the high elevation of the Penitentiary, and 
the ample water-supply; but in no small degree perhaps 
to the sober and regular habits to which the prisoners 
are compelled. They have two meals a-day. The 
repas du matin consists of 250 grammes of meat and 
a pint of soup, and the repas du soir of 50 grammes 
of bacon and 150 of rice, together with onions and 
other vegetables. Besides this, the daily allowance 
of bread is 750 grammes (lA lbs.). They are allowed 
no beer, wine, or spirits. I had the curiosity to enter 
one or two of the cells, of which there are 430. They 
are clean and neat, and one of them was fitted up 
with a degree of taste which would have done honour 
to a lady's drawing-room. It belonged to a man 
named David, a native of Marseilles, described as an 
ecrivain. He had been originally condemned to 
twelve years' imprisonment in France for theft ; and 
on being allowed a certain modified liberty, had 
broken the rules and been sentenced to ten years' more 
detention in the Lambessa Penitentiary, where he had 
been nearly four. The prisoners are employed in 
carpentry, smiths' work, and various other trades^ 

X 2 



308 POLITICAL PRISONERS. 

and are allowed sometliing in the shape of wages 
for what they do, when the work exceeds a certain 
amount. It was with his earnings that David had 
contrived to ornament his cell in the manner which 
had struck us, and although it was the most remark- 
able, it was by no means the only instance of the same 
kind. Besides the inmates of the Penitentiary, there 
are seventy-five political prisoners. They are divided 
into three classes : the first, political ofi'enders of the 
year 1848 ; the second, those of the year 1852 ; and 
the third, those who have been deported in conse- 
quence of being afiihated to secret societies. Of this 
last class there were twenty-one in number. Their 
treatment is not harsh in itself. They are allowed to 
buy beer, wine, or any other luxuries; and, if they 
will submit themselves to the authorities, they are 
allowed to walk within a radius of two leagues at 
their pleasure. One of them, a man named Rabel, 
had his wife in the village, and the authorities allowed 
her the same rations as her husband. These are 350 
grammes of meat, 300 of fine white bread, and 750 
of the ordinary quality, daily. I tasted both the 
bread and the soup, and found them as good as could 
be desired, and the same may be said of the other 
articles of consumption. 

If the political prisoners decline to make their sub- 
mission, they are not allowed to quit the precincts of 
the prison, which however include a tolerable space 



IMPOSSIBILITY OP ESCAPE. 309 

of ground. I saw two men wlio were stubborn on 
this point. They had the wild eye, unkempt locks, 
and enormous beards which are popularly supposed 
to be the outward and visible signs of red republi- 
canism, and were smoking and playing cards with 
one another. One of the pair, a native of Rouen 
named Gauthier, apparently an artisan, had endured 
his self-imposed restraint for three years. I asked 
if any either of the convicts or political prisoners ever 
attempted to escape, and I was told that such was 
very rarely the case ; for that those who attempted it 
were at once brought in by the Arab tribes, as soon 
as ever they passed the limit of two leagues from the 
establishment. This impossibility of getting away 
may perhaps account for the absence of any stringent 
surveillance on the part of the authorities, which 
somewhat surprised me. But there were ninety-five 
empty cells at the time of my visit, and I heard that 
some of the prisoners were engaged in forced labour 
at Batna; and possibly these may have been the 
worst subjects in the establishment. 

Lambessa is the site of an important Roman for- 
tified camp, the head-quarters of the third Augustan 
Legion. It was formed, in all probability, in the year 
169 A.D.* Nothing can be better chosen than its 

* This date results from an inscription on a stone found in the 
wall of the camp, in which the names of the emperors M. Aurelius 
and L, Aurelius Verus appear united with the title "Sarmatici." 
The war against the Sarmatae only broke out in 168, and before the 
end of 169, Verus had been poisoned. 



310 REMAINS OF THE ROMAN 

locality. Its elevation above the sea, and its exposure 
to the breezes from the north, render it healthy in 
the midst of summer; and it is sheltered from the 
scirocco by the mountain masses of the Aures. Two 
strong springs, bursting from the flanks of the hill, — 
the Ain Boubennana on the south, and the Ain 
Drinn on the south-east, — guarantee an abundance of 
water at all seasons. The former of theai supplies 
the Penitentiary, and the engineer officer who was 
entrusted with the duty of making the requisite 
arrangements found the old Roman conduit in good 
repair. Similar arrangements had once existed at 
Ain Drinn, which is now employed to turn a mill ; 
but it would seem that the original water-chamber 
here had been destroyed by the Vandals, and repaired 
in a very inferior style by the Byzantine emperors 
after their re-conquest of the country. The united 
supply from these two fountains has been estimated as 
averaging 2,300 litres (or more than eighty cubic feet) 
of water per minute. It was conveyed by means of 
pipes to every part both of the camp and of a town 
of considerable size which existed in the immediate 
vicinity. Important remains of the latter are still 
above ground. Two gates, the ruins of a temple 
dedicated to iEsculapius, those of a theatre, and two 
family tombs are conspicuous. There would be little 
difficulty in tracing the whole extent of the walls, 
the whole area within which is full of debris. Outside 



CAMP AND TOWN. 31 J 

of them is an amphitheatre. Its walls are entirely 
decomposed and covered with vegetation, and it is 
impossible to determine with any accm^acy the dimen- 
sions of the arena. But it is obvious that its ellip- 
ticity was unusually small,* although the form is not 
perfectly circular. The greater axis lies between the 
points north-west by west and south-east by east. 
The most curious, however, of all that still remains 
standing is a building, which Shaw took for a kind 
of triumphal arch, but which is undoubtedly a por- 
tion of the residence of the Roman commander of the 
forces here, and the Erench have given it the name 
of the Prsetorium. It has no roof, but has been 
surrounded by a wooden palisade, and converted into 
a sort of open-air Museum to receive the objects of 
antiquity which are found from time to time and 
thought worthy of preservation. On the re-entering 
face of the capital of an engaged column in this 
building are portions of an inscription which included 
the names of the emperor Severus, his son Caracalla 
(who is therein styled princeps jmentutis), and the 
empress Julia. f About 500 yards oflP, in the east- 
north-east direction, is a small gate of the town, which 

* I am told that in the immediate neighbourhood of Perla, in 
Sardinia, are the remains of an amphitheatre in which this same 
pecuharity is remarkable. 

t As Caracalla received the toga virilis in 201, the "Preetorium" 
must have been built before that year : and it would certainly not 
have been erected before the fortification of the camp, which was, 
as has been seen, in 169. The period therefore to which this 



312 



TRIPLE GATEWAY. 



apparently had a double opening; so that troops 
passing in each direction at the same time might not 
have their order disturbed, — an arrangement which the 
French have introduced into all their African fortified 
posts. To the south-east by half south of the small 
gate is a triple arch by v^hich the engeinte vy^as entered 
on another side— a much more pretentious structure, 
and possessing a good deal of elegance. 

The inscriptions discovered seem to indicate that the 

edifice belongs is determined within very narrow limits. Near 
the small gate I saw a large tablet lying, on which was the in- 
scription : — 

IMP. CAES. M. AVRELIO. C0MM0D[0. AVG] 
C POMPONIVS MAXIMVS EX C[ONSVLT.] 
DECVRIO COL. THAM0GADE[NSIVM]. 

In the field not far oft* was another with the following : — 

IMP. CAESARI 

M. AVRELIO 

ANTONINO 

AVG. ARMENIACO 

MEDICO. PARTHICO 

GERMANICO. 

The latter is remarkable as containing both the titles Armeniacus 
and PartMcus^ and also that of Germanicus; whereas it has been 
stated that M. Aurelius laid aside the two former in a.d. 169, on the 
death of his brother Verus, and did not assume the last tiU a.d. 172. 
See Clinton, Fasti Romani, on the two years. Thamogadi (or 
Tamugadi), referred to in the former inscription, has not yet been 
determined. But as, according to the Itinerary of Antoninus, it 
was both on the road from Lambesis to Cirta (Constantine) and 
upon that from Lambesis to Theveste (Tebessa), it must have been 
to the north-east of Lambesis. The Peutinger Table puts it upon 
the northern of two alternative roads from Lambesis to Theveste. 
The distances difter, the Itinerary making it only fourteen Eomaa 
miles from Lambesis, the Table as much as twenty four. I have ' 
very little doubt that the road to it led by the tombs which have 
been noticed in the text, and that the distance given by the Table is 
the true one. The city was destroyed by the mountaineers^of the 
Aures soon after the Vandal invasion of the country. 



ANCIENT SUBALTERNS' CLUB. 313 

city Lambesis (the ancient form of tlie name), if existing 
antecedently to the military camp being formed, acquired 
its importance from this. A milestone found between 
it and Batna reckons the distance not from the town, 
but from " the camp" {a castris). Indeed the soldiers 
appear to have been actually employed in the con- 
struction of at least one of the temples.* In the 
" Prsetorium" there is an extremely curious monument, 
a hemicycle, or circular bench, such as are found in 
aluiost all old Greek or Roman towns, in which old 
people, the aprici senes of Horace, used to sit sheltered 
from the cold winds, and enjoying the warmth of the 
winter sun. In this particular instance it seems to 
have belonged to what may be called " a subalterns' 
club." Its inner face is covered with an inscription, 
setting forth a resolution to which the members had 
come, on the occasion of furnishing their club with the 
statues of the reigning family and of their tutelary 
deities ; and the purport of it indicates the possession 
of common funds of considerable magnitude. It was 
the practice in the Roman army to allow every cen- 
turion to select a sort of deputy, or, as we might say, 
lieutenant, who, in the times of the Empire, was called 

* On two broken pieces of a circular frie^ie, which obviously belong 
to one another, but do not complete the whole, are the words : — 

lOVI VALENTI SILVANO 

HAS AEDES PER III LEG. AVG. FECERV , . . 

which may perhaps be supplied : 

Jovi valenti, Silvauo [et Nymphis] 

Lias aides per tcrtiam legioncm Aiujustam Jeceni[jit I)uamoiri\ 



314 OraCERS' RING-MONEY. 

his " optio." It woiild appear from the inscription 
in question, that this appointment conveyed with it 
some sort of claim to succeed the chief when a vacancy 
occurred ; but that it was necessary for the claimant 
to procure a confirmation to his appointment from 
some superior, possibly the legate of the province as 
the representative of the emperor. Appointments in 
all ages have involved the payment of bribes, or their 
successors, fees ; and, apparently in reference to this 
necessity, the resolution in question determines that 
every member, on setting out for securing the object 
of his expectations, " ad spem suam confirm andam," 
shall be paid 8,000 sesterces (about £62 lO^.)- If 
any one reaches the limit of mihtary service, and is 
discharged, he is to be paid, every 1st of January, 
"ring-money," to the amount of 6,000 sesterces 
(£46 17s. 6d.). Now this phrase is very remarkable : 
for Septimius Severus, whose name appears on the 
engaged column of the " Prsetorium," is the very 
emperor who bestowed upon every Roman soldier the 
much-coveted right to wear a golden ring, — or, in 
other words, gave him the social status of a gentle- 
man.* The " ring-money,'' therefore, is in fact the 
pension enabling the veteran to keep up this position. 
Its amount is enormous, when compared with the pay 

* The subject of the "jus annuli aurei" is very lucidly handled in 
Smith's " Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities," under the 
word " Ring." 



THE STATUS OE THE SOLDIEE. 



315 



under the Republic ; and it is exactly the same as the 
pension a retired centurion received from the emperor 
Caligula.^ But in this case, it is apparently not the 
pension paid by the Government which is meant, but 
merely an allowance from some fund over which the 
lieutenants had an absolute control ; for the language 
of authority is used in the resolution.! Neither are 
the discharged veterans of the rank of centurion, but 
(as it would seem) merely members of the lieutenants' 
club. Nothing could more strongly mark the immense 
importance which the profession of arms had acquired, 

* Suetonius, Caligula^ § 44. This sum, however, was a reduction 
from what had been paid before, and caused great discontent. 

-J- This inscription is so curious historically, that it is worth giving 
at length. It runs as follows : — 

Pro salute Augustorum, 
Optiones scholam suam cum statuis et imaginibus domus divinse, 
item diis conservatoribus eorum, ex largissimis stipendiis et 
liberalitatibus quco in eos conferunt, fecerunt ; curante L. Egnatio 

Myrone qusestore. 
Ob quam solemnitatem decreverunt, Uti collega proficiscens ad 

spem suam confirman 
dam accipiat HS octo mihawN-veterani quoque missi accipiant 

Kal. Jan. anularium singuli HS sex milia N. 
quse anularia sua die quaestor sine dilatione adnumerare curabit. 
At each extremity of the hemicycle is a square pilaster, and on it a 
list of names (51 in all) of the " optiones," and on the returning face 
of one pilaster 12 more. To only one is the sign indicating the ramk 
of centurion prefixed, and that is cut on the moulding ; so it is 
obvious that the individual in question (one L. Cornelius Cato) was 
promoted subsequently to the insertion of his name. A similar 
change seems to have happened in the case of two others. The 
letters COE, (cornicen) and act. leg. (actarius legionis) are cut in 
the moulding of the pilaster after their names. And the whole 
name of one individual has been studiously erased with the chisel. 
Perhaps he committed some disgraceful act, and was " expelled his 
club" in consequence. 



316 DTIEAD OF EVIL OMENS. 

under the despotic government of the Roman em- 
perors. 

The extreme solicitude of pagan antiquity to avoid 
as bad omens all vrords suggesting evil, and to grasp 
at the reverse, is well known to the student of the 
Greek and Latin literature. The same feeling shows 
itself very strikingly in the "cognomina" of the time 
of the Empire, which every one chose for himself. Out 
of the sixty- two subalterns of the 3rd Legion, whose 
names appear on the hemicycle just described, there 
are no less than nine Felixes, besides a plentiful 
sprinkling of other names of good import, such as 
Honoratus, Speratus, Hilarus {sic), Fortunatus, Geni- 
alis, Donatus. In fact, a Roman of the third century 
had the same morbid desire for a lucky name, that an 
Englishman of the nineteenth exhibits for an aristo- 
cratic one, and would have shrunk with no less disgust 
from an acquaintance of the name of Caducus or 
Sinister, than Mr. Plantagenet Brown experiences when 
his letters arrive directed to P. Brown, Esq. But of 
all omens, a dream is of course the most irresistible. 
A large block, apparently the base of a statue, lying 
among the ruins of Lambessa, informs us that what- 
ever had been supported by it was set up " at the 
suggestion of Apollo" by a commandant ad interim 
of the Augustan Legion. Another individual, an 
actual prsefect of the camp, furnished the genius of 
his house witli a new pedestal, in consequence of ^ 



TIMBER TRADE OF BATNA. 317 

recommendation to that effect from the god of wine 
conveyed to him in his sleep ; and upon the strength 
of this piece of obedience solicits his adviser to send 
him and his family safe back to Rome, and prosper 
them there.* 

The only trade which appears to exist at Batna, 
except such as is necessary for the supply of the 
wants of the military, is in the timber which grows in 
the surrounding forests with which the flanks of the 
Aures are covered. The principal trees are holm oak, 
and cedar. The latter is not the cedar of Lebanon 
(at least it seemed not to me), but a different variety, 
with leaves almost as stiff and prickly as gorse in 
England. Its wood is used for building. The oak 
is for the most part converted into charcoal, and 
in that state sent to Constantine for fuel. For some 
miles before reaching Batna stunted cedars and Aleppo 
pines began to show themselves, but the forests do 

* Alfeno Fortunate 
Visus dicere somnio 
Leiber pater bimatus 
Jovis e fulmine natus, 
Basis banc novationein 
Genio domus sacrandam. 
Votum deo dicavi 
Prsefectus ipse castris. 
Ades, ergo, cum Panisco, 
Memor hoc munere nostro ; 
Natis, sospite matre, 
Facias videre Romam, 
Dominis munere honore 
Mactum coronatumque. 



318 MOUNTAINEERS OF THE AURES 

not commence until the traveller has arrived at the 
roots of the mountains. 

The reasons were probably the same which induced 
both the Romans and the French to establish a strong 
military post in this neighbourhood, viz. the necessity 
of keeping a sufficient force at hand to check the war- 
like and high-spirited mountaineers of the Aures. 
These are, beyond all doubt, of the same race which 
the earliest Greek settlers found in Northern Africa. 
They were kept in a certain subjection by the Romans,* 
as they now are by the French ; but when the Romans 
themselves fell before the arms of the Vandals, 
the conqnerors failed to maintain this supremacy ; 
and during the greater part of the time that elapsed 
before the re-conquest, were unable to set foot within 
the Aures. The Turks only succeeded in raising 
a tribute from the tribes of the northern side, and 
from them with great difficulty. So far as one may 
judge from a distant view, the character of the Aures 
must not be unlike that of Great Kabylie, — extremely 
fertile valleys, embosomed in mountains, and abun- 
dantly supplied with water from the springs gushing 
from their sides ; and this is, in fact, the description 

* Gibbon, however, falls into a great error in placing Lambessa in 
the heart of the Aures (Chapter XLI.). It is on the lowest part of 
the northern flanks of that remarkable mass, to which it bore the 
same relation for military purposes as the French camps at Eonduck 
and Kara Mustapha did to the Great Kabylie before the termination 
of the war with Abd-el-Kader, 



AS YET UNSUBDUED.. 319 

which Procopius gives of the country. But there is 
as yet no Port Napoleon in the Aures, and the 
exploration of the country could hardly fail to be as 
perilous as that of Great Kabylie was two years ago. 
As is generally the case with regions with which there 
is little or no intercourse, the Aures has the character 
of being full of wild beasts. The woodcutters, how- 
ever, go up into the forest and remain there for 
several days, without any arms but an axe, and I 
heard no account of any accident having occurred. 
In Batna I was shown a tame lion, which had been 
found when a whelp by the Arabs in the vicinity, and 
was kept by a tradesman of the town as a pet. He 
was about three years old, and allowed any person to 
play with him and scratch his ears ; and indeed was 
extremely fond of human society when his visitors 
approached him ; but he did not like them to look at 
him from a distance over the palisade which sur- 
rounded the shed in which he was chained up. The 
owner told me that he fed the animal upon meat, but 
always made a point of first boiling it. 

I was extremely anxious to visit an ancient Numi- 
dian monument at no great distance from Batna, 
which some military antiquary, when it was first seen 
by the Prench army on an expedition to the south, 
thought proper to designate by the whimsical name 
of the Tomb of Syphax. By the kindness of the 
commandant, I obtained the escort of a spahi, and 



320 ANCIENT NUMIDIAN MONUMENT. 

some mules, and spent a couple of hours in examiniiig 
it carefully. The name by which it goes among the 
Arabs is Madrasen. To reach it, we left the road 
between Constantine and Batna at a caravanserai 
called Ain Hedjar, and struck across the plain to the 
eastward, passing several camps of nomads whose 
dogs were more than usually ill-tempered, and fording 
one or two of the marshy brooks which seam the 
steppe. After a ride of two or three hours we crossed 
a low ridge of limestone, and on a gentle elevation in 
front of us beheld the object of our search. It is 
a monument of the same type as the " Tomb of the 
Christian Queen" on the Sahel of Algiers, but of 
altogether different proportions. A circular base of 
about 16 feet in height, and, according to my 
estimate, 166 feet in diameter, is surmounted by 
a circular truncated pyramid, consisting of 23 
steps, each two feet high and three broad, the whole 
formed of hewn stones of immense size. The base 
itself is surrounded by a cornice, supported on 
engaged columns, sixty in number. On ascending to 
the top of the pyramid, we found ourselves on a 
circular area, of about twenty- eight feet diameter, 
having in the centre a circular hole of three or four. 
This last my companion and myself, after examining 
it with the greatest care, felt satisfied had never been 
filled up ; — although, from the dislocation of the 
stones immediately around it, its real character might 



THE MADKASEN A PIRE TEMPLE. 



321 



easily have escaped the notice of a hurried observer. 
It descended, we were convinced, quite into the 
ixiterior, and before the edifice was injured must have 
remained open : for if it had been originally closed by 
a circular mass, hke the keystone of a vault, that 
mass could never have been forced downwards ; 
whereas it is in a downward direction that the neigh- 
bouring blocks slope. If, however, the circular hole 
is a part of the original design, the whole erection is 
not likely to have been intended as a tomb, which all 
travellers who have hitherto examined it have tacitly 
assumed. It is to me more probable, that it was 
built as a temple for fire-worship, and by Greek 
workmen. The immense labour required to move 
the masses of stone of which it is built implies the 
possession of great resources in the builder, and the 
grand effect of the bold sweep of the cornice bespeaks 
an artist of genius.* The building was entered by a 

* My own conjecture would be that the "tomb" was built by 
Micipsa, the eldest son of Massinissa, to whom Scipio the destroyer 
of Carthage gave Cirta, over and above his share of his father's 
dominions and accumulated wealth ; and that not improbably a 
large proportion of the captive population of Carthage was used up 
in its construction. In this case the Mauritanian monument on the 
Sahel, described above, may very well have been taken as a type by 
the architect of the Numidian one, as the ancient heads of Minerva 
were by Phidias. The traditional form would be, perhaps even on 
rehgious grounds, preserved ; but the alteration of proportions 
shows, no less certainly than in a comparison between the archi- 
tecture of Athens and Egypt, that here too the idea of the barbarian 
had to pass through the mind of a Greek before its capabilities for 
beauty could be unfolded. 

Y 



322 SEARCH EOR TREASURE. 

small door on the side facing east by north. This is 
of an oblong shape, about four feet in height and two 
in width. Its bottom coincides with the upper 
surface of that course of stones which forms the 
cornice of the lower part of the building. It is 
eflPectually masked from a spectator below; so that 
it was obviously made for some necessary purpose, 
incidental to a public ceremony, but not itself forming 
a part of the ceremony. Yet there is no attempt to 
conceal it from an explorer, as in the case of the 
entrance to the Egyptian pyramids. It leads into a 
corridor which is now choked up with rubbish, the 
result of modern attempts to penetrate the monu- 
ment. The Arabs, of course, believe the Madrasen 
to contain treasure ; and the last Bey of Constantino 
is reported to have brought some cannon and battered 
it, in the hope of enriching himself by the operation. 
One of our muleteers strongly sympathised with the 
undertaking. He would himself, he said, gladly 
devote his time to the task of forcing an entrance, if 
he felt certain he should find two hundred francs 
there. I told him that he might rest assured he 
would find no money, whatever else he might light 
upon ; but although he seamed to have a great respect 
for me from seeing me make use of a compass and an 
aneroid barometer, I fear avarice was too strongly 
ingrained in him to allow him to believe me. 

Some of the scientific visitors of this singular 



COLD NIGHTS ON THE PLATEAU. 323 

monument have believed that there were traces of 
inscriptions and even of rude figures on its sides. 
My companion and I were unable to discover any- 
thing of the kind ; and yet we searched carefully for 
them, especially in one part to which General Desvaux, 
the commandant at Batna, had particularly directed 
my attention. If anything was ever to be seen, it 
must have been merely scratched on the surface of the 
stone ; and with all its simpKcity the execution of the 
cornice is so admirable, that it is difficult to believe 
any inscription or device, altogether out of keeping 
with it, could have been allowed. If therefore these 
rude figures ever existed, they were probably the 
work of barbarous times, succeeding the era of greater 
civilisation in which the edifice was built. 

We returned to the main road by a different track, 
over a low range of hills, from which we descended 
on another caravanserai, that of Ain Yagout, after 
a ride of an hour and a half, the mules quickening 
their pace as they became sensible by the approach of 
evening that they were coming to the end of their 
day's journey. It turned out that we were the only 
arrivals ; and we therefore were allowed to appropriate 
the two rooms devoted to the use . of the travelling 
public. The day had been extremely hot ; but after 
sunset the elevation of the plateau above the sea 
caused a great change to be felt. I had put on a 
shepherd's plaid over my great-coat before reaching 

Y 2 



324 



JOURNEY TO MILAH. 



Ain Yagout, and on arriving felt extremely delighted 
with the fire which was at once lit for us. 

I was advised, before leaving Constantino finally, to 
see Milah, a specimen of a purely Arab town popula- 
tion. The French took possession of it in 1838, and 
it was extremely useful to them as a military position, 
until the communication between Constantine and the 
sea was secured by the building of Philippeville. Milah 
is not only on the site of the Roman Milevium or Mileum, 
but is the very town itself. The extent is small,* 
but the foundations of the walls throughout, and their 
whole height for a great part of the circumference, 
are of Roman masonry. Mileum was the first stage 
on the ancient road from Constantine to Setif, and is 
set down in the Itinerary as twenty-five Roman miles 
from the former place. By the track which we took, 
it is a little more than this. The path runs for a con- 
siderable distance along the western side of the valley 
of the Rummel, and crosses one of the afiluents of 
that river by a ford. Its general bearing is to the 

* Mileum was however a bishop's see, and one of some note in 
the ecclesiastical history of Africa. It was filled by Optatus, the 
historian of the Donatist schism ; and was, as well as Carthage, the 
place of meeting for a council which condemned the tenets of 
Pelagius in the early part of the fifth century. But a bishopric in 
Africa was more like the modern incumbency, as regards temporal 
importance and area of jurisdiction, than anything suggested by 
the same name at the present day. Hippo, the seat of St. Augustine, 
could not have been much larger than Hitchin in Hertfordshire ; 
and even St. Cy^jrian at Carthage had probably not a quarter of the 
spiritual charge laid upon Dr. Hook at Leeds. 



A ROMAN STATION. 325 

west-nortli-west. On tlie right-hand, the horizon is 
always bounded by the Hmestone hills which form the 
edge of the plateau above the Oued-el-R-ummel; but 
in the interval sandstone^ and alluvium are often 
seen, and the road passes over several low hills of this 
last character, in some parts of which the soil has the 
same peculiar rotten mudlike texture that has been 
remarked elsewhere. The country is bare of trees, 
but extremely well tilled, chiefly by Kabyles ; for 
the Arab population of Milah employ themselves in 
cultivating orange and lemon groves in its immediate 
vicinity. Milah itself is most curiously situated in a 
well-watered and wooded oasis, presenting a striking 
contrast to the bare region which surrounds it. It 
was apparently the stationary camp of a Koman 
cohort, deserted, but entire, at the time of the Arabian 
invasion. Its very small size is perhaps the reason 
of its having been taken possession of bodily ; as it is 
one of the very rare instances in which the ancient 
buildings have not been broken up and huts built of 
the materials.! 

The kaid of Milah is a chief much in the confidence 

* This is sometimes red or lake coloured ; reminding me of what 
I have seen in the mountains on the borders of Bohemia, and on the 
hanks of the Moselle. 

t The Kabyles round about stand in the same kind of relation to 
the Arabs of Milah, that the perioecians of Sparta did to the free- 
men : but the identity of religion in the modern instance of course 
has a great effect in promoting good feeling between the parties 
concerned. 



326 RECEPTION BY THE KAID. 

of the Frencli. He resides in Constantine ; but we 
were furnished with letters from him to his son, and 
with the escort of a spahi who was a man of some 
rank in the tribe. The young kaid, a very sickly- 
looking youth of about twenty, received us with great 
politeness. He seated us on his divan, and sent both 
for coffee and for his interpreter, a singularly intelligent 
and well-mannered Arab, who spoke French fluently, 
of which the kaid knew only two or three words. 
After we had drunk our coffee we were asked whether 
we would like to dine or to see the curiosities of 
the place. It was the first day of the Ramadan, or 
Mahometan Lent, and not only the gates of the town 
as we entered, but the doors of the several houses in 
it were thronged with the male population of all ages, 
watching anxiously for the time when the sun should 
set, and allow them to break their fast. We told the 
kaid that we should prefer to postpone dinner till our 
return, when the day being at an end we hoped we 
should have the honour of his company. It is an 
established piece of breeding in primitive Arab society, 
that the host serves his guest, unless an inferior, with- 
out touching a morsel himself if he be not specially 
invited to do so. Where they have had much to do 
with Europeans, their behaviour is much the same as 
that of a courteous English gentleman. We were 
attended in our walk round the town by the young 
kaid and three or four of his principal retainers, 



AHAB HOSPITALITY. 327 

the interpreter showiDg us everything that he thought 
interesting, — the mosque, the walls, a celebrated 
orange and lemon grove, and above all, two springs 
of water, which he obviously considered as the climax. 
We passed a couple of tumulary stones of the Roman 
times; and the kaid seemed much astonished when 
I told him that the one of them had been put up by 
a widower to his wife, and the other commemorated 
a man who had died at the age of ninety years. No 
doubt he thought the two facts equally remarkable. 
There were no other remains of any kind, except 
portions of ancient substructions, apparently cellars, 
which could not be adequately examined without 
excavation. 

Dinner was served for my companion aud myself 
in a room within the one where we had been just 
received. The young kaid, when the time came, 
excused himself on the ground that he had himself 
some of his own people to entertain. I believe the 
true reason to have been that our sudden arrival had 
prevented him from making any addition to the dinner 
which w^ould otherwise have been prepared, and that 
he did not wish to impose any check upon our appe- 
tites. Certain it is, that he took up his position in 
the chamber of reception, and that no dishes were 
introduced there until they had been first sent to us, 
except it might be a bowl of JwiisJwiis. The inter- 
preter remained with us, but, like his chief, could 



328 VANITY IN AGE. 

not be induced to join our meal. After dinner coffee 
was brought in, which the kaid flavoured with sugar 
in our presence, carefully stirring it until the whole 
lump was perfectly melted before presenting it. This 
ceremony I had noticed before in the western pro- 
vince, and I am told that a great point is made of it. 
Possibly the origin of the custom may be, that as, 
according to Arab notions, the host is responsible for 
the life and property of his guest, he carefully ascer- 
tains that no poison has been introduced into his 
coffee. 

My companion was desirous of sketching the assem- 
blage of retainers around the kaid's divan; and far 
from offering any objection to it, they displayed great 
anxiety that the thing should be done, and gave us 
every facility for effecting it. One old man, who had 
made the pilgrimage to Mecca, was the vainest of the 
party ; and took extraordinary pains to place himself 
in what he thought a striking attitude. Some of the 
faces were very fine ones, our spahi's perhaps the best 
of all. The young kaid unquestionably looked the 
worst of the whole company. He was however 
extremely hospitable, pressed us to drink out of the 
grace-cup which went round — containing only pure 
water^ and did everything in his power to make us 
feel at home. When the picture was finished, the 
names and titles of the company were duly recited to 
be written under their respective likenesses ; and it 



EEFECTS OE EASTING. 329 

was curious to find the machinery of a petty court 
within a building not equal to the meanest English 
farm-house. The metal pot out of which we had drunk 
was brought with great ceremony by the cupbearer, 
who wore a blue bournous by way of distinction. 
Besides the interpreter mentioned above, there was also 
a regular secretary, a grand ecuyer and other officials, 
among whom the most important to a traveller is the 
coffee- chaouch, whose duties are those of the butler 
in an English family. This functionary brings you a 
cup of coffee in the morning before starting, and it is 
to him you make the present which is intended as 
an equivalent for the entertainment you have received. 

The young kaid provided us for our return with 
much better mules than those which had brought us 
from Constantine, and we set off at a quarter before 
six, to avoid the heat of the day. About half-way is 
a spring, where we had lunched the day before, and 
where we did the same thing on our way back with 
the relics of our repast. The spahi, who, as a con- 
scientious Mahometan, had not broken his fast, was 
tortured by a splitting headache, and when we reached 
the fountain, threw himself on the ground, and cover- 
ing his face with his bournous, tried to get a httle 
sleep. The day before he had apparently suffered 
but slightly, but to-day he continually laid his head 
on the pummel of his saddle as he rode, and appeared 
completely exhausted. It had been, indeed, very 



330 OBSERVANCE OE THE RAMADAN 



painful, on arriving at Milah, to see the gaunt wolfish 
faces of hungry growing boys, who had probably been 
out tending cattle for the whole day, or driving a mule 
for twenty or thirty miles, without a morsel of food 
or drop of water having entered their lips. Neither 
may they smoke, nor — which an Arab values even 
more— take a single pinch of snuff. The nearest 
approach to a gratification of sense which I saw, is 
the sticking of a wild flower in the nostril.* The face 
and hands may be washed in water, but none must 
be swallowed before sunset. After the commencement 
of the Ramadan, I never passed an Arab in the after- 
noon without his inquiiing the hour of the day ; which 
previously had not occurred even once ; so painful is 
this regulation to those who cannot, as is the habit 
with the rich, pass the day sleeping in their houses. 
But like the judaical observance of the sabbath with 
some English sectaries, the rigour of their fast consti- 
tutes in the estimation of these poor people the test 
stantis aut cadentis discijplincB, I have no doubt that 

* The owner of the lemon-grove which we visited at Milah had 
been very desirous to present us each with a lemon. Not having 
anything at hand which would have been suitable as a return for 
this compliment, we dechned with thanks ; but the kaid and the 
whole party were extremely importunate that we should take the 
fruit " to carry in our hands," if we did not wish to eat it, I could 
not understand this suggestion at the time ; but afterwards, when 
I saw the sufferings of the common Arabs during the Ramadan, and 
the expedient noticed in the text, it occurred to me that the offer 
had been intended to diminish the presumed inconvenience of the 
next day's fast to us, and I felt vexed not to have been alive to 
a piece of delicate poHteness. 



A CHIEF POINT OE RELIGION. 331 

the murder of a whole family (if not tribesmen) would 
sit very lightly on the conscience of many an Arab, 
whose soul would be utterly crushed by the reflection 
that he had drunk a mouthful of water between 
sunrise and sunset during the Ramadan, even to save 
himself from death. 



332 JOURNEY TO GUELMA. 



CHAPTER XII. 



I TOOK my final leave of Constantine, a locality 
unparalleled in tlie oBjects of interest it presents, with 
much regret, although I was about to visit a region 
which I particularly wished to see. My object was 
to strike the sea-coast again at Bona, the Hippo of 
St. Augustine, taking on my way the hot-springs of 
Hammam Meskoutin (the Enchanted Baths) and 
Guelma, the ancient Calama. I had brought letters 
to the chief of the Bureau Arabe at Constantine ; but 
unfortunately at my first arrival I found this gentleman 
on the point of setting ofi* on a promenade militaire 
with the general commanding the Constantine division. 
I was, however, promised the means of making the 
expedition ; and the day before I finally set out, the 
officials at the bureau assured me that a spahi and 
two muleteers should be with me by half-past five in 
the morning, ki a quarter before six, two Arabs of 
the kaidat of Guelma arrived with a mule and a horse 
for myself and my baggage, but without any escort. 
What occurred afterwards induces me to beheve that 



BREEDING GROUNDS OF THE TRIBES. 333 

the spahi who had been ordered to attend me had 
shrunk from the prospect of two long days' march 
during the Ramadan, and been wilfully unpunctual ; 
but at the time, being anxious to escape as much of 
the heat of the day as possible, I assumed that the 
people at the Bureau had judged a military attendant 
unnecessary ; and after making the Arab employe, who 
brought the muleteers and spoke French, repeat to 
them in Arabic the ronte which had been laid down 
for me, I set off cheerily, although alone, my late 
companion having returned to Philippeville on his 
way back to Algiers. The road we took for the first 
three or four miles coincided with that to Batna. It 
then turned off to the left, and ascended over hills of 
aUuvium to the limestone plateau, gradually assuming 
an eastward direction. At first there was a good 
deal of cultivation by Arabs to be seen, the crops being 
exclusively cereals ; but afterwards, when we were 
fairly on the limestone, these ceased and were suc- 
ceeded by a sea of pasturage, covered as nsual by the 
wild artichoke. But the herbage was most luxuriant, 
and the number of brood mares, which appeared here 
and there, showed that I had got into the breeding 
grounds of the tribes. We pushed on briskly, the 
two men being in good spirits at the thought of 
returning to their own tribe, and not yet exhausted 
by fasting and fatigue. They chanted alternately 
what I suppose were verses from the Koran, in which 



334 SAVAGE DOGS. 

one of them was a great adept, but the other, who 
was the stouter fellow, and had withal the honester 
face, was frequently at fault, and obliged to stop in 
the middle of his strain. After about three hours' 
riding and fording a small stream, we passed two or 
three European farms, with a few fig and olive trees 
planted in the immediate neighbourhood of them. 
The owner of one of these met us, mounted on a fine 
Arab horse, with a gun on his shoulder, and he 
proved, contrary to my expectation, to be a French- 
man. Then we plunged into a fresh series of plains, 
here and there broken up in small plots for cereal 
cultivation by the Arabs, but for the most part covered 
with excellent pasture, and full of Arab douairs, with 
herds of sheep, goats, cattle, and camels. Several 
small parties of mounted Arabs also appeared from 
time to time in the distance. My men did not seem 
at all acquainted with the people in the douairs, in 
the immediate neighbourhood of several of which our 
track led us. They were extremely sulky, and rarely 
replied to my salutation, or made any attempt to 
restrain the savage onsets of their dogs, which were 
very troublesome. I had unfortunately no long whip, 
and to defend myself from the brutes was obliged to 
make the muleteers give me, from time to time, a few 
stones to hurl at them when they threatened to leap 
at my legs, which as they hung down instead of being 
tucked up after the fashion of the natives,— who sit 



MULES AND CAMELS. 335 

on their packsaddles as an English costermonger does, 
- — presented an apparently irresistible temptation to 
these curs. One incident, which amused me much at 
the time, was nearly proving serious. A little camel 
foal, breaking away from a herd nearly a mile off, came 
bounding after us, with a fixed determination for a game 
of play. The mule, however, seemed to entertain a 
singular aversion for this new companion, and on its 
approach began to kick and plunge violently, and 
exhibit the greatest alarm. It was as much as ever 
the two Arabs could do to secure the creature, and 
prevent her from setting off at full speed with my 
baggage ; while I tried my best by stones and vitu- 
perative language to repulse the unwelcome visitor, 
who obviously enjoyed the joke. Fortunately the 
mule's halter held, and before the men were quite 
exhausted, the little camel, with its tail stuck up 
vertically, and uttering the most unearthly sounds, set 
off at full speed to rejoin its mother; or my shirts 
would infallibly have enriched the wardrobe of some 
members of the douairs we had just seen. 

After between five and six hours' riding we reached 
the caravanserai of Oued-el-Aria, which was half-way 
from that of Oued Zenati, where my instructions 
were to pass the night. I found there a few French 
soldiers in charge of some stallions, which the Govern- 
ment send into the plains at this season for the use 
of the tribes. There were four of them in the stable, 



336 GEOLOGICAL PHENOMENON. 

which was large enough to contain twelve or fourteen, 
all greys. One was a very beautiful animal, but 
apparently vicious. It was the tliickest Arab horse 
I saw during the whole time I was in Algeria. 
Another was likewise a fine horse and quite gentle, 
but the remaining two seemed to me unworthy of the 
purpose for which they were intended, being alto- 
gether commonplace animals. 

Close to this caravanserai are the ruins of a 
marabout's tomb, and also some foundations which 
are probably those of a mosque. The tenant of the 
tomb most likely built the water chamber for the foun- 
tain from which the caravanserai takes its name. The 
building, as usual, is loopholed for better defence. In 
its immediate neighbourhood some most remarkable 
rocks crop out, at an angle of forty -five degrees. 
They are obviously the continuation of strata equally 
striking, which are visible on a hill a little to the 
north-east of the caravanserai, presenting the curious 
appearance of two vast leaning walls of limestone 
rock, running parallel for several hundred yards, with 
a green walk between them. The dip is from south- 
east to north-west. I could not help remarking to 
the gardien, as a geological phenomenon, the strange 
aspect of the masses near the caravanserai. " Ah ! 
yes. Monsieur," he replied; "they completely domi- 
nate the whole court. The position is wretchedly 
chosen." It seemed impossible for any idea to enter 



FALL FROM A MULE. 337 

the man's mind unconnected with warfare against 
the natives. 

After breakfasting I resumed my journey, and as 
it is an article of popular faith in Africa that the pace 
of a mule is easier than that of a horse, and I had 
seven leagues more before me, I determined to exchange 
animals with my portmanteau. But it was not a 
very easy thing to mount the mule, who obviously 
disliked a Christian rider no less than a camel. With 
the help, however, of two of the French soldiers, I at 
last succeeded in effecting a lodgment on her back, 
after which she allowed me to make myself as com- 
fortable as circumstances permitted. These were, 
how^ever, very unpropitious. The Arabs had thrown 
my poncho and shepherd's plaid over the harre, or 
packsaddle, and, doing to others as they w^ould be 
done by, had piled them in such a way as to convert 
the seat into a truncated cone, tapering towards the 
mule's tail. For the Arab mode of riding, this was 
all very well ; but I found it extremely uncomfortable, 
and about an hour afterw^ards got a bad fall by it, 
while climbing a wall of dipping strata which crossed 
our track. On our left hand we had, for four or five 
hours after leaving Oued-el-Aria, cliffs of limestone, 
apparently the edges of plateaux rising one above 
another. Our general course was eastward, but I did 
not take the bearings minutely. At about eight or 
nine miles from the caravanserai we crossed a second 



338 LIMESTONE CLIEFS. 

wall, like that wtiicli occasioned my tumble, and 
descended into an alluvial plain. Over this several 
masses of tufo were scattered, and in two or three 
instances there was a large collection of them crowded 
together, presenting the appearance of a heap of 
sea-worn rocks honeycombed by marine zoophytes. 
The limestone cliffs on the left hand (or north) still 
continued. Occasionally large masses of them appeared 
standing separate as if detached from the rest. One 
most remarkable instance of this occurred about ten 
miles from El Aria. From a mile off on the south- 
west side, it presented the aspect of the annexed 




sketch, being probably not less than fifty feet in 
height ; but afterwards on passing it, I observed that 
it w^as connected with the neighbouring cHffs on its 
north-east side. During the afternoon we passed 
several douairs, with the tenants of which I was glad 



WOMEN'S TENTS. 339 

to observe tliat my Arabs were on better terms, 
although there was still no display of cordiality. In 
the doors of some of the tents women appeared 
sitting ; and I remarked that in all these cases there 
was the distinction of a crimson hanging of some sort. 
In the entrance of one tent I saw a lady very gaudily 
dressed, apparently engaged in measuring out white 
linen or woollen cloth; but the distance at which 
good breeding requires an Arab gynseceum to be 
passed prevented me from minutely verifying the 
description one reads in the words of the prophecy 
which king Lemuel's mother taught him.* 

During the whole of this afternoon's ride we passed 
no cultivated soil, but the pasture was throughout 
extremely rich. After however five hours of travel- 
ling, when I began every minute to expect the 
caravanserai of Oued Zenati to appear, four mounted 
Europeans met us, and from one of them I learnt 
that the caravanserai was still an hour and a half's 
ride farther. It was evident that we had since 
leaving El Aria diverged from the proper route, and 
probably gone too far to the south ; for the limestone 
cliffs, which we had so long seen on our left hand, for 
some time past had been no longer visible. Very 
shortly after this meeting we came upon a river 

* Proverbs sxxi, 22 — 24. " She maketh herself coverings of 
tapestry ; her clothing is silk and purple. She maketh fine linen, 
and selleth it ; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant," 

% 2 



340 



MIXTURE OF LANGUAGES. 



running from west to east, and continued our course 
along its northern bank over an alluvium which had 
subsequently to its deposition been thrown into rather 
steep ascents and descents. From every elevation I 
hoped to see the caravanserai, being in a good deal 
of pain from the effects of my fall ; and I was very 
happy when at half-past six o'clock the Arabs pointed 
out a white building in the distance as it. The poor 
muleteers had not tasted food during the whole day ; 
and as soon as ever the sun dipped, they produced 
one or two flat cakes, and ate them with avidity, not 
however without first offering me a share. I of 
course declined to diminish their scanty store, and 
reminded them that I had breakfasted at El Aria. 
" Toi makasch tiene careme : toujours mangiaria," 
said one of the poor fellows, in the polyglot dialect 
which is growing up out of the intercourse between 
the natives and the illiterate European settlers of the 
interior.^ The taste of food and the prospect of soon 

* There are a few Arabic words which the European children 
habitually make use of at Guelma, even when playing with each 
other. Makasch, no, shuiya, gently, I found invariably took the place 
of the corresponding French terms. On the other hand the Arabs 
constantly use the words ora, hour, and buono or bueno, good, to one 
another. lauh, ye&, a Kabyle word, pronounced exactly like the 
German affirmation, is also very common among the lower orders of 
Europeans. One day at Algiers I called out in French to a boy who 
was below, to know whether I could get down from a part of the 
fortifications by a path of which I could only see the beginning. He 
saw what I wanted by my sign, and answered "ja." When I got 
down, I asked for some further piece of information in German, 
thinking that to be his mother tongue, when he replied in Spanish 
that he did not speak French. 



A BIVOUACK IN PROSPECT. 341 

reaching the quarters for the night restored their 
spirits, and they re-commenced their song, at the same 
time urging on the animals at a rate which for the 
sake of humanity I felt myself bound to check. 

After all, we did not arrive till eight o'clock, and 
then, to my horror, I found that the building which 
had attracted our attention was shut up. I thought 
of a former experience in the province of Oran, and 
concluded that the tenants had been obliged to aban- 
don it from the unhealthiness of the locality, a theory 
which the croaking of a legion of frogs, that had filled 
our ears ever since we approached the river, seemed 
to favour. We knocked and knocked again, but could 
obtain no answer. Seeing a fire a few hundred yards 
off, I thought it might be a smithy, which would 
imply the presence of some European, and walked up 
towards it, for the purpose of ascertaining the fact. 
But before I got near I was assaulted by a pack of 
dogs and obhged to beat a retreat, and make up my 
mind to what I expected would turn out a bivouack 
in a feverish locality ; for it was plain that the ani- 
mals, Avhich had been in march for thirteen hours, 
could go no farther. However, just as I had pitched 
upon the most sheltered spot to pass the night on, an 
Arab appeared and unlocked the gate of the building, . 
which turned out to be no caravanserai, but a stable, 
with an elevated brick platform in the middle. To 
this he caused my baggage to be transferred, and 



342 A ERIEND IN NEED. 

lighting a fire of artichoke stalks on the floor, spread 
a mat by the side, and motioned for me to take my 
place on it. I was parched with thirst, and made 
signs that I wanted something to drink, pointing to 
my mouth, and repeating the word " hamma" (water) 
several times, besides translating it into every modern 
language of which I had the least knowledge ; but, to 
my great disgust, my new friend, although obviously 
desirous to make me comfortable, took no notice of 
my necessity, and, I fancied, seemed rather to pooh- 
pooh it. However, in a few minutes he went away, 
and returned with a large bowl of sheep or goats' 
milk, which, thirsty as I was, was more than I could 
drink. I now felt quite independent of any further 
commissariat, having in my pocket a cake of chocolate, 
which I had provided myself with against contin- 
gencies ; and, spreading a poncho on the brick plat- 
form, with a carpet-bag for a pillow, I looked forward 
to a fair night's rest, taking the precaution of lighting 
a mortar night-light, of which extremely useful articles 
for a traveller I happened to have one or two remain- 
ing. But at this instant another Arab arrived, who 
spoke French, and informed me that I was not at 
Oaed Zenati, but at another place, Embadis, three 
leagues off it ; that he himself was a commis of the 
Bureau Arabe, and that my muleteers had lost their 
way. He told me that he would have some supper 
sent to me, and some breakfast the next morning, and 



STRANGE QUARTERS. 343 

also a spahi to be my guide to Hammam Meskoutin ; 
but that for the last I must wait till seven o'clock. 
Having said his say, this good genius vanished into 
the smToundiug darkness ; but the promised sapper 
soon arrived, in the shape of a bowl of kouskous, and 
another of milk. These I shared with the muleteers ; 
and, wrapping myself up in my plaid, slept on my 
hard couch as soundly as I had ever done in bed, 
and really was quite sorry to rise the next morning, 
when, at half-past five, the men came to wake me. 
On turning out I saw at once what the real state of the 
case was. The fire which had attracted me the night 
before belonged to a small Arab douair, the inmates 
of which had the charge of the breeding stable, for 
such it was in which I had slept, on the platform in- 
tended for a similar use by the grooms who brought 
the stallions for the mares of the tribes in the neigh- 
bourhood. My entertainer of the previous night 
brought me a cup of coffee and another bowl of milk, 
and was delighted with a two-franc piece with which 
I presented him. I also gave him the tin-case in 
which I had carried ray stock of night-lights, and 
readily acceded to his request for the empty paper 
mortar, which seemed to please him scarcely less. 
Possibly he took the printed directions for its use for 
a verse from the Koran, and the whole apparatus for 
an amulet. 

My men were so anxious to be off, and the previous 



344 



HAMMAM MESKOUTIN. 



day had been so hot, that, having got some informa- 
tion from the commis as to the route, I determined not 
to wait indefinitely for the promised spahi, but set out 
at once. This rashness was very near carrying us 
again astray. A market was held very near the place 
where we had passed the night, and this producing 
a concourse of Arabs from many miles around, the 
muleteers had several opportunities of getting infor- 
mation. But, unfortunately, as is often the case, they 
did not like to betray their own ignorance. After 
riding a couple of hours, therefore, I was extremely 
delighted to have an opportunity offer of informing 
myself on the subject. A large party of mounted 
Arabs met us, three of whom were obviously chiefs, 
accompanied by a spahi who wore the insignia of the 
Legion of Honour on his bournous. I concluded at 
once that this man must speak Trench, and riding up 
to him, told him my story, when he informed me that 
I was at the moment in the right track to Hammam 
Meskoutin, which was three hours off, but that the 
muleteers were altogether ignorant of the neighbour- 
hood. I therefore determined to take the command 
myself; and, steering by the compass, with the addi- 
tional luck of finding another adviser at a critical point, 
I succeeded, after four hours more of riding, in reaching 
the French military hospital which has been estabHshed 
in this singular valley. It appeared in the distance 
just after we had passed to the northern side of a crest 



INCORRECT INFORMATION. 34^» 

of rock ; but we soon lost sight of it, and were so long 
a time traversing the wood of wild olives which sur- 
rounds it, that I began to fear some fresh blunder had 
been made. However, at a little after eleven o'clock 
a turn in the path suddenly showed us a long, ugly- 
looking building close at hand, on the other side of a 
brook. Hard by were several tents, some occupied 
by soldiers, others by Jewish families who had come 
for the purpose of taking the mineral baths. A lodge 
at the entrance to the hospital was the habitation of 
the porter, himself a discharged sous-officier of the 
French army, and now possessing the privilege of 
keeping a canteen and restaurant for the benefit of the 
inmates. 

I repeatedly had occasion to remark in Algeria 
how very inaccurate the information often was which 
related to any moderately distant locality, even when 
furnished by official people of some station. Here 
was an example to the pm-pose. I had been posi- 
tively assured at Constantine, that whatever dis- 
comforts I might suffer on the way, at Hammam 
Meskoutin I should find a good hotel with every 
comfort ; and I had quite made up my mind to pass 
the night there and proceed the next day to Guelma. 
But on arriving I found that there was no hotel at 
all, and that if I wished to stay the night it could 
only be as an occupant of a bed in one of the wards 
of the hospital, and that by the special favour of the 



346 • MINERAL SPRINGS 

intendant. I naturally preferred going on to Guelma, 
which I did when the heat of the day began to 
diminish, after visiting the exceedingly curious springs, 
which throw Carlsbad completely into the shade. 

The water supplying the baths rises in great force 
from the top of a rock which is formed entirely of 
deposits from the springs. The temperature at the 
point of issue was no less than 97° centigrade (more 
than 206° Fahrenheit), so that, taking into account 
the elevation above the sea-level, the water may be 
said literally to issue at boiling heat. Several yards 
below the orifice it was scarcely possible to stand on 
the leeward- side of the stream from the heat of the 
vapour which rose from it. At the time of my visit 
three holes only were used, but another had been 
discovered about a fortnight before, and if required 
will doubtless be made available. But, in fact, almost 
anywhere in the vicinity, if a hole were bored, there 
is little doubt mineral water would be found. The 
whole place is full of cones of carbonate of lime 
deposited by the water around the lips of the funnel 
through which it rises, until the elevation becomes 
such that the force of the spring is no longer sufficient 
to run over, when the orifice gradually fills up. It is 
a large group of these cones which has given rise to 
the name Hammam Meskoutin, or at least to the 
fantastic legend which has been coined to account for 
the name, and which reminds one of a story in the 



or EXTRAORDINARY EinCACY. 347 

"Arabian Xiglits/' A brother and a sister, say the 
Arabs, formed the monstrous desire to unite them- 
selves in wedlock, and even persuaded the kadi of 
their tribe to sanction the proceeding. The relations 
assembled to take part in the marriage ceremony, 
and the other members of the tribe stood some way 
off to witness it ; when, just as the words were spoken 
which ratified the impious contract, the wrath of 
Heaven fell upon the whole assemblage, and changed 
them into the figm'es which now remain as a lesson 
to posterity. 

The deposit of these springs is chiefly carbonate of 
lime, but the water from one of them is strongly 
impregnated with iron. This one is said to be 
extremely efficacious in healing obstinate wounds, 
sore backs of horses, and the like. About three- 
quarters of a mile off is another spring of ferruginous 
water, of a much lower temperature, which is taken 
internally. The efficacy of the hot springs in rheu- 
matic complaints, or pains arising from gunshot 
wounds, is said to be almost miraculous. The porter 
told me that he had originally come there bent nearly 
double in consequence of a fah from his horse, and 
with his left side paralysed : but that in a fortnight 
he had perfectly recovered. He certainly was to all 
appearance straight in figure and sound in limb. 

This locality was frequented by the Romans, and 
is in my opinion the Ac^uce Tihilitance of the Antonine 



348 ANCIENT EOUTES. 

Itinerary, placed in it at fifty-four miles from Constan- 
tine, and forty from Bona.^ If I had not wandered 
from tlie route which had been laid down for me, 
I should have reached it in about fifty-six miles 
from Constantine ; and the Roman roads generally 
ran straighter than the tracks in present use. By 
deviating to the southwards, I had extended the 
journey to nearly seventy miles. The old Roman 
road is nearly identical with the line of march taken 
by the French in their first expedition against 
Constantine which terminated so disastrously. The 
army passed to the north of those limestone rocks 
which I had seen on my left hand during the after- 
noon of the day on which I left Constantine, and 
suffered terribly from the cold; for the expedition 
was undertaken in the middle of November, and the 
country is absolutely bare of wood, so that not a 
fire could be made even to cook the soldiers' food. 
Marshal Clauzel, who commanded, had been altoge- 
ther deceived by the false expectations held out to 
him, that the Arabs were favourable to the French 
cause, and that the gates of Constantine would be 
opened to him as soon as ever he appeared. So entirely 
confident was he of success, that on arriving before 

* The Peutinger Table makes Hippo (Bona) forty-five miles from 
the Aquee Tibilitanse. Neither in it, nor in the Itinerary, does this 
route pass through Calama (Guelma). Nor is it at all necessary to 
do so. It is easy to see on the old road to the latter place the point 
where travellers going to Bona would have turned off to the north. 



ROMAN BATHS STILL USED. 349 

the town, he pubhshed an order of the day which 
had been hthographed in Bona, announcing that the 
expeditionary force would forthwith enter it. But 
not the least overture was made to him, and after 
two fruitless attempts at storming, the marshal was 
compelled to commence a retreat under such un- 
favourable circumstances, that except for the presence 
of mind and gallantry of General Changarnier, then 
commanding a battalion, who with less than 800 
men effectually checked the advance of a body of 
6,000 Arabs, it is supposed the whole Prench army 
would have been destroyed. As it was, they were 
compelled to leave some guns and all their wounded 
in the hands of the enemy, and were at last only 
saved by the weather, which had been extremely bad, 
suddenly changing. 

The baths which the Romans made at Hammam 
Meskoutin are still used. They are cut in the tufo, 
which itself is the ancient deposit of the waters. One 
of them is of a large size, and is used for the common 
soldiers, who bathe in it by batches of fifty at a time. 
Another is devoted to the officers in the hospital. 
I obtained permission to use this; and felt some 
satisfaction at the thought of occupying the very 
chamber which had been used by a Sempronius or 
Csecilius seventeen centuries before. The tempe- 
rature was about 96° Fahrenheit, and the water 
had been cooling ever since the previous evening. 



350 EXTREMELY FERTILE VALLEY. 

There is a tliird bath, likewise Roman, which is 
divided into three pools, all however under the same 
roof. This the Prench appropriate to women and 
children ; and although there is no separation of any 
kind, carry their love of making regulations to the 
extent of compelling married women to use the first 
of the pools, single women the second, and children 
the third. Besides these, there is a hot douche 
(also Roman), which is applied with the water 
at the heat of 37° centigrade (98-6° Fahrenheit), 
and a vapour bath. There were sixty-one patients 
in the hospital at the time of my visit, of whom 
nine were civilians and the rest common soldiers, 
except one, a cantiniere, the only female patient. 
There are four wards for soldiers, each containing 
fifty beds, and four rooms in another part of the 
building for officers, each intended for four beds ; but 
at the time of my visit there were only five officers 
altogether. 

The valley of Hammam Meskoutin is one of the 
loveliest spots I saw in Africa, and if it ever becomes 
a fashionable resort, which the Algerian newspapers 
are continually proclaiming as its approaching destiny, 
it may be made almost a fairy-land, the abundance 
of water and the temperature of the soil admitting of 
the cultivation of even tropical plants. In some parts 
there are still visible old foundations which appear to 
be the remains of Roman villas. The place is very 



GUELMA THE ANCIENT CALAMA. 351 

tolerably accessible, there being now a good road 
made between it and Guelma, which is only ten or 
twelve miles off, and itself connected with Bona on 
the coast by one of the best routes in Algeria. But 
at the present time there are no appliances whatever 
for the reception of visitors. The flowers bloom and 
the nightingales sing only for the delectation of the 
invalids in the hospital, who would infinitely prefer a 
cigar and a cafe cJiantant. 

The town of Guelma is entirely modern. When 
the French arrived there in 1836, nothing whatever 
existed but some of the ruins of the ancient Calama ; 
and these were made use of for the purpose of con- 
structing a fortified position, to serve as a military 
hospital and a depot of stores for the operations 
against Constantine. Of course whatever building 
materials came to hand were seized without scruple ; 
and no doubt the old Roman remains suffered much. 
There is still however to be seen what appears to 
have been an edifice containing public baths, and 
the walls of a theatre, besides several traces of ancient 
substructions in different parts of the town, and what 
looks like the foundation of the cella of a temple. 
The theatre is the most interesting relic, as exem- 
plifying the tact of the ancients in the selection of 
a site. The concave of the pit is turned towards 
north-north-west by north, and in its construction, 
as always happens where circumstances permitted. 



352 



BEAUTY OF THE SITE. 



advantage has been taken of the hill side to cut out 
the benches. From a terrace which occupies the site 
of the ancient fagade, the view is charming. Imme- 
diately in front runs a brook through a ravine. 
Behind this is broken ground covered with trees, 
from which the song of nightingales arises ; and yet 
beyond runs the Seybouse, with precipitous banks on 
the north side. The river is backed by undulating 
hills rising one behind the other, and on the left and 
right, at the distance of six or seven miles, the view 
is closed by the Atlas thickly clothed with wood. 
Everything wears a smihng aspect of fertility, and 
bespeaks a well-watered country without anything 
like marsh. The Atlas range just opposite to the 
facade is comparatively low, so that the cool breezes 
from the littoral refreshed the promenaders under the 
portico which once existed. To stand on this lovely 
spot as the sun is just setting, and then turn round 
and look at the mean houses and loopholed enceinte 
of the modern Guelma, with its public promenade 
laid out in complete defiance of the climate, certainly 
does not impress one with a very high idea of the 
nineteenth century in what concerns architectural 
taste. 

At this place, w^here a considerable number of the 
natives have been induced to settle, a gun is fired at 
sunset during the Ramadan ; and at the signal the 
fast of the day is put an end to without loss of time. 



ARAB COFPEE-CRUSHING. 353 

An Arab chief connected with the Erench Government 
dined the day I arrived in the saloon of the only 
hotel, and ate an enormous dinner without asking 
any inconvenient questions. But at the termination 
some roast mutton was brought him, and being by 
this time completely gorged, he made anxious inquiries 
as to whether the sheep which furnished it had 
been slain by an Arab butcher. The waiter averred 
solemnly that it had ; and no doubt would have been 
equally ready to pledge himself that the animal had 
expired under the knife of a Red Indian, had such 
an assertion been desired. But his testimony came 
a quarter of an hour too late to be unquestioned, and 
the Arab pushed away the dish with the air of a man 
who felt himself capable of any sacrifice for conscience 
sake. I could not help thinking of the Spanish fable 
of the two cats, who after devouring a fowl they 
find roasting, recoil with horror from the suggestion 
to eat the spit. During the few hours which follow 
sunset, the Arab cafes are full of visitors, sitting 
cross-legged on benches, and listening to the strains 
of the native flute, while they sip their coffee out 
of small teacups without handles, apparently made of 
very fine porcelain. The coffee is not ground, but 
pounded in mortars with heavy rammers of metal, 
nearly three feet in length. This instrument is held 
by the middle and raised by the operator, stripped 
naked to the waist, above the height of his head. It 

A A 



354 MARKET OY GUELMA. 

is then let fall upon the coffee with the ejaculation 
" Ha-reeah," the first syllable being drawn out long, 
while the rammer is being elevated, and the latter 
synchronising with its fall upon the berries. Some- 
times two or three persons are employed at the same 
time in the task ; and w^hen the work goes on well, 
the syllable "reeah" is repeated by each in such 
quick succession, that no interval is left. The mean- 
ing of the term, as it was interpreted to me, is 
"tres-fort/' I suppose it is in fact the hortatory 
" Hard all," of the English. In an establishment 
which I saw, the process was carried on by two 
negroes, the Arab proprietor sitting by their side 
smoking, while his ear informed him of the least 
relaxation in the efforts of his workmen. 

J ust outside the walls of Guelma a market is held, 
to which the Arabs come from a considerable distance, 
with salt, grain, oil, the wood for the red dye of 
women's hands and feet, poultry, vegetables, and 
fruit, besides cattle, horses, and mules. The camels 
which bring the articles of commerce are made to lie 
down in rows side by side, and remain so as long as 
the market lasts. Generally one of the fore-legs is 
tied up ; and sometimes, but more rarely, two, when 
of course the creature cannot rise at all. When only 
one is confined, it can rise on its legs, and sometimes 
does so to obtain the ease of a change of position, 
but never attempts to move from the spot on which 



DEPRECIATION OE HORSES. 355 

it has been ordered to remain, although its disgust is 
ever and anon expressed by the same growl in which 
it never omits to protest against the original infringe- 
ment on its locomotive powers. The hinder parts 
present a most singular appearance as the animal lies. 
The camel, as is well known, rests upon that part of 
its hind-leg (answering to the knee in the human 
being) which is in all other quadrupeds partially con- 
cealed by the skin of the belly. The effect of this is 
to raise the hock nearly to the level of the crupper, 
while all the part of the leg below the hock is tucked 
beneath out of sight, and the appearance is the same 
as if it had been cut off. There were some good 
horses for sale in the market for about 200 or 250 
francs ; which I was told was at a heavy depreciation 
below the ordinary price. I saw likewise some brood 
mares in foal, one of considerable beauty, but none 
of any stature. The depreciation in horses may 
perhaps arise from the greater utility of mules, now 
that the country is becoming settled. At Guelma, 
as at Tlemcen, the Government keep a considerable 
number of stallions for the use of the tribes ; but 
together with these they also keep some fine male 
asses ; and the demand for these is much greater 
than for the horses. Except for the purposes of war, 
the mule is a much more valuable animal to an Arab 
than the horse; and the great increase in mule- 
breeding as compared with horse-breeding is one of 

A A 2 



356 REMAINS 01 CALAMA. 

the most convincing proofs of the natives becoming 
reconciled to French supremacy. Sometimes the male 
mules become troublesome ; when they are castrated, 
no matter at what age the sexual disposition begins 
to display itself. I saw one which had jus't been 
sold, undergo this horrible operation in the open 
market ; and although it could hardly have been less 
than six or seven years old, the occurrence was 
obviously an every-day one and excited not the least 
notice. The animal uttered no cry, and struggled 
very little, except just after it was cast. 

The stone of which the ancient Calama was built 
is a tufo, obtained in the immediate vicinity. Indeed 
the whole neighbourhood abounds in it. It is excel- 
lently adapted for building purposes, as it works very 
easily, and grows harder with exposure to the sun. 
Large blocks of it form the skeleton, as it were, of the 
remaining portion of the ancient baths, which are 
situated within the precinct of the modern citadel. 
Of the edifice the most striking featmx is two large 
arches, which enter the sides of what was a high 
apartment with cylindrical roof, serving, perhaps, as a 
salle d'atteide, if the baths were public. Over the 
rectangular pieces of tufo, masses of the Roman flat 
brick alternate, by no means regularly, with blocks 
united by cement. I observed — what I do not 
remember ever remarking in Italy — that the bricks 
have lines channelled on their surface in patterns, that 



EFFECTS OF AN EARTHQUAKE. 357 

is, the mould in which they were cast must have been 
cut. Probably this was done in order to give a better 
hold for the mortar. In these baths was found, as I. 
was told, an inscription of some interest which I saw 
with others lying in the yard of a house where the 
chief officer of engineers at Guelma has his bureau. 
Tlie last line was imbedded in the earth, so that only 
just the tips of the letters could be seen ; but from 
the part above ground it appeared, that a weak spring 
of mineral water had, in the sequel of an earthquake, 
become much stronger, and overflowed the bounds of 
a stone _pisci?ia in which it had been hitherto received. 
The line concealed from view contained a notice of the 
special arrangement by which the inconvenience had 
been remedied. But the curious part of the matter 
is that, the names of the emperors Valens and Valen- 
tinianus appearing upon the stone, it becomes clear 
that the convulsion referred to is the remarkable one 
which occurred on the 20th of July, a.d. 365, the 
effects of which St. Jerome, speaking of it from his 
boyish recollections, says extended over the seaboard 
of the whole world. The sea suddenly receded, leaving 
vast tracts of its bottom bare. It afterwards returned, 
and overwhelmed the land in the neighbourhood of 
the parts which had been thus denuded. Alexandria 
in Egypt, the coast of Laconia, and that of Sicily, are 
mentioned by the historians as places wdiich suffered 
in this w^ay. The inscription of Guelma gives another 



358 PAGAN RIOTS AT CALAMA. 

point at wliicli volcanic action was felt. The mineral 
spring {aqua picrct) began, it says, to overflow after 
shocks of earthquake accompanied by subterranean 
noises {intonantibus terrce motibiis). I made every 
possible inquiry, but could not hear of the existence 
of any mineral spring at the present time; so it is 
probable that the fountain, which increased in the 
earthquake of Valens's reign, disappeared — as is often 
the case — in some subsequent convulsion of a similar 
kind. 

The ancient Calama must, judging from the fertility 
of the neighbourhood and the character of the remains 
which still exist, have been a flourishing city. So 
much as this, too, is implied in a letter from a pagan 
of some wealth and position to St. Augustine, which 
is inserted among the epistles of the Latin father. 
But morally and religiously there was not much to be 
said for the inhabitants. The letter in question is 
written to deprecate the influence of the Bishop of 
Hippo from being exerted to the prejudice of the 
people of Calama, who in a riot which began by a 
collision between the participators in a pagan festival 
on the 1st of June and the Catholic party, had burnt 
the houses of the orthodox clergy, damaged the church, 
and compelled the bishop to save his life by flight.* 

* This was Possidius, a friend and protege of Augustine's. He 
took refuge in a manor-house near ; upon which his assailants set 
fire to this, and he narrowly escaped being burnt alive. The 
Donatists, who had a bishop of their own at Calama, were believed 



APPEAL TO ST. AUGUSTINE. 



359 



Augustine's correspondent (one Nectarius) possesses 
a perfect readiness to make good all losses which may 
have been suffered, and only deprecates any additional 
punishment. But, if we may trust the bishop's reply, 
a life had been lost in the course of the affair, and the 
pagans had been manifestly the aggressors, by bringing 
a troop of dancers past the church. He gives very 
little hope that the satisfaction to be exacted will, so 
far as he is concerned, fall short of the just standard ; 
although it is impossible to be blind to a hint that, by 
becoming a Christian — as it seems his father had 
done before him — Nectarius might obtain a greater 
influence with those in whose hands the fate of his 
townsmen rested. Neither at Guelma, nor Philippe- 
ville, nor Arzew, did I see among the tumulary 

to have encouraged the mob in their attack, — a precedent which 
has not remained without imitators even in the most enlightened 
ages and tolerant countries. Crispinus, however, who was fined ten 
pounds of gold for the share he had (or was accused of having) in 
the outrage, seems not to have been the Donatist bishop, but a priest 
of the same name. Possidius took the magnanimous part of obtain- 
ing the remission of the fine ; but Crispinus, instead of exhibiting 
thankfulness, appealed to the emperor against the justice of the 
sentence altogether. It so happened that the proconsul of Africa at 
the time was a zealous Catholic, and so unsparing in the use of the 
secular arm, that Augustine is obliged to beg him not to put heretics 
to death, but to confine his efforts to correcting their errors. " Ex 
occasione terribilium judicium ac legum, ne in seterni judicii pcenas 
incidant, corrigi eos cupimus non necari ; nec disciplinam circa eos 
negligi volumus nec sypplicia quibus digni sunt exerceri. Sic 
igitur eorum peccata compesce ut sint quos poeniteat peccasse. {Ep. ad 
Donatum, C, vol. It. p. 354.) If he continues to be so severe, Augus- 
tine adds, the churchmen, who are the only persons that care to 
appeal to him, will become unwilling to do so, and their enemies 
learning this will grow even more audacious. 



360 HEALTHY NEIGHBOURHOOD OE GUELMA. 

inscriptions, that were in existence, any of a Christian 
character. Some, indeed, betray, very painfully, quite 
an opposite feeling. One at the first-named place 
speaks almost with bitterness of the disappointment 
of a father, who had educated two sons expensively, 
and lost them both after launching them in life. By 
way of consolation in his old age he begins to erect a 
magnificent tomb for himself, and the only hope he 
expresses is that he shall live to finish it. The space 
for his age is left unfilled up, and the latinity in which 
his sentiments are expressed is as miserable as the 
spirit from which they proceeded. 

Between Hammam Meskoutin and Guelma there 
are several European farms ; and 1 can conceive no 
more favourable position for a settler, if only good 
roads could be made to connect the place with Con- 
stantine and Philippeville. With the latter, perhaps, 
it will be attempted, by extending the route which is 
in course of formation between Philippeville and 
Jemappes. I heard no complaints of fever at Guelma, 
and the beauty and fertility of the country, the abun- 
dance of water, and the plentiful supply of building 
material at hand, are points which must strike the 
most casual observer. Yet the people complain that 
there is no commerce. Their proposed remedy for 
the evil is thoroughly French. It is to make Guelma 
the head-quarters of a division of the army ! 

The road from Guelma to Bona crosses the Seybouse 



JOUKNEY TO BONA. 361 

on a substantial bridge, and almost immediately begins 
by a gradual ascent to wind among tbe hills which 
intervene before finally descending from the plateau of 
the Atlas into the plain to the south of Bona. The 
traveller first reaches Heliopolis, an extremely thriving 
French village of about 400 houses, well supplied with 
water, and healthy. The inhabitants turn their atten- 
tion chiefly to the growth of mulberry-trees for silk, 
— the most profitable investment for capital in this 
part of Africa. Beyond Heliopolis is Guela Bousba, 
and yet further Nechimaya, the latter containing only 
about thirty houses, the former (I should say) even 
less. The inhabitants of Nechimaya are almost all 
Germans, either from Alsace or the Black Forest. 
They cultivate cereals, and appear quite contented 
with their success ; and they do not complain of any 
fever in the summer-time, which is the general topic 
of conversation with a stranger in those localities 
where it prevails. All these villages, as well as 
Penthievre, which is something less than half-way 
between Guelma and Bona, are really in their origin 
fortified camps, constructed to maintain the line 
of communication between Bona and Constantine. 
About thirty-five miles from the former place the road 
begins to descend into the plain, and when it reaches 
this it becomes very bad, having before been good 
all the way from Guelma. At Penthievre, with the 
exception of an inn, there are within the enceinte 



362 WILD BOAES AND LIONS. 

only two or three shops kept by Maltese, and a gen- 
darmerie ; but the inn is really comfortable for Africa, 
and one might very well pass the night there. North 
of Penthievre the wood, which covers the flanks of the 
Atlas in the central province, reappears ; and in every 
respect the soil seems similar to that of the Sahel of 
Algiers. In the immediate neighbourhood of the road 
the ground has been brought under cultivation by the 
Arabs, but the wild boars from the thicket do them 
much damage. One of these creatures was distm^bed 
in his work of destruction, in the middle of the day, 
by our horses, and set ofi" at full speed for the neigh- 
bouring wood. He was the largest boar I ever saw, 
— far bigger than the wild boars of Germany. But 
the African variety is by no means so formidable an 
animal as the European. The African boars, when 
hunted by battue, get away if they possibly can with- 
out charging the sportsman, unless they be wounded 
inefl'ectually. The lion, on the other hand, unhesi- 
tatingly attacks the beaters ; and for this reason the 
Government does not allow him to be attacked in this 
way, which General Youssouf, when commandant of 
Bona, made for a time fashionable. There was scarcely 
ever a lion hunt at which a native or two were not 
destroyed.''^ In the ordinary method of killing the 

* An account appeared in Galignam, about three months after I 
passed along this road, of the Guelma diligence (which in the 
summer travels by night) having been stopped by a lion who was 
lying down in the middle of it, and w^ho did not suffer himself to be 



DESCENT UPON BONA. 863 

animal there is no risk to any one but the hunter, and 
very Httle to him, if he chooses to shoot the Hon from 
an ambuscade. 

In descending the hills to the plain of Bona, the 
large lake which makes the place a centre of attraction 
to the sportsman who is fond of duck-shooting, shows 
itself in the distance to the north-west. The imme- 
diate neighbourhood of the town is very pretty. 
Owing to the wet soil there are a good many trees, 
and among them a few palms. The acacia is parti- 
cularly abundant, and the difference of climate showed 
itself strikingly in the circumstance of this being in 
full bloom, although it was only the 22nd of April. 

The vicissitudes which the name of this town has 
undergone while retaining its identity, are an emblem 
of its fortunes. Ubbo, the Punic name, is analogous 
to VeHa, or Velletri, and indicates the character of its 
site in the midst of marshes. The two rivers, the 
Boujermah from the south-west, and the Seybouse 
from the south-east, enter the sea very near to each 
other. Between the two, about a mile from their 
present mouths^ rise two mamelons, partially united 
with each other, but altogether insulated from the 

frightened away by the burning of paper, by means of which the 
passengers hoped to get rid of him. He soon, however, relieved 
them of his unwelcome presence by walking off. I have no doubt 
this lion was thoroughly gorged with the flesh of the wild swine 
which abound here, and had lain down to sleep on the road, as a 
drunken man will do, from sheer inability to go farther. 



364 SITE OF ANCIENT HIPPO. 

higher hills which separate the valleys of the two 
rivers. These two mamelons, or perhaps the western- 
most of them, which is the higher of the two, was, it 
cannot be doubted, the site of the original Ubbo. 
The irregular triangular- shaped area, which is now cut 
off between the mamelons and the two rivers, is even 
at the present time little better than a marsh, and in 
former days was no doubt both lower and less exten- 
sive, having been for many centuries increased by the 
deposits brought down by the rivers whenever their 
streams were swelled by heavy rains. The Greek 
merchants converted the Punic Ubbo into the word 
in their own language which came nearest in sound, 
viz. Hippo or Hippon.* This latter was changed 
into the form Hippona, from the instinctive tendency 
to give a feminine form to the name of a town ; Hip- 
pona in its turn was corrupted into Bona by the 
Spaniards of the middle ages ; and this, in its French 
shape Bone, is perhaps doomed at no distant period 
to suffer some fresh change. Bone is not the actual 
city of which Augustine was bishop, but about a mile 
and a half from it, on the other side of the Boujermah. 
It occupies the site of a Saracen town, built at the 
close of the seventh century, partly from the ruins of 

* This was also the name of one of the ten towns of the Pales- 
tinian Decapolis, probably, also, a Phcsnician settlement (Pliny H. 
N. V. 19), and, I suspect, it constitutes the last part of the word 
Bors-ippa, the name of the tower of Babel, — the " tower of the river," 
— which appears in the inscription upon it. 



MLITARY PRISON AT BONA. 365 

Hippo ; but tliis latter was destroyed by tlie Vandals, 
with the exception of the episcopal palace and library. 
The new position, although not so fitted for commercial 
purposes as Hippo, is much stronger as a military 
post, for it is protected by a high and steep hill, upon 
the top of which a kasbah, or citadel, was built by the 
kings of Tunis ; and this, before the invention of gun- 
powder, must have been nearly impregnable.* The 
French acquired the possession of this fortress by the 
courage and address of two individuals, Captain 
Armandy, who commanded a brig of war lying in the 
roads of Bona, and Youssouf, then a subaltern officer 
of spahis. These officers, with 130 French soldiers 
and marines, occupied the citadel on the 26th of 
March, 1832, at the instant of its temporary aban- 
donment by each of two conflicting claimants to the 
obedience of the people of Bona ; and for some time 
had to hold their ground against enormous odds. 
They were at last adequately supported, and Bona has 
since remained in the hands of the French, who made 
it the base of their operations against Constantino. 
The kasbah is now converted into a military prison, 
which appeared to me excellently conducted. A great 
deal of work is got through by the prisoners. I 
saw them performing the operations of stone-cutting, 

* The hill of the Kasbah at Bona," is probably the Casfellum 
Sinitense, which St. Augustine describes as "Hipponensi Coloniae 
vicinum." {De Civitate xxii. 11.) 



366 EXCELLENT DISCIPLINE. 

carpentry, and smith's work, witli a steadiness and 
alacrity which would have been creditable to paid 
labourers in England, and this with very little appa- 
rent supervision. Their appearance, too, was perfectly 
healthy, and I was informed by the intendant that 
even in summer-time they suffered very little ; 
although the plain of Bona is considered one of the 
most unhealthy spots in the whole of Algeria. Their 
diet slightly differs from that of the Lambessa prisoners. 
Together with their soup they are allowed 150 
grammes (between 5 and 6 oz.) of fine white bread. 
They get only 120 instead of 150 grammes of rice ; but 
on the other hand they are allowed thirty-two grammes 
of coffee, and a very small quantity of salt, sugar, and 
wine. In all other respects the allowance is exactly 
the same as at Lambessa. But this liberal dietary is 
not extended to those who either refuse to work, or 
are prevented from doing it by injury or bodily 
infirmity. Such receive only 150 grammes of meat 
instead of 250, and ten grammes of bacon instead of 
fifty, and no wine, sugar, or coffee whatever. For 
punishment the diet is reduced to 750 grammes of 
bread and water ; and this, together with solitary 
confinement, sometimes extended to a period of three 
months, is found altogether effectual. At the last 
inspection, out of 460 prisoners only three were under 
punishment, and these were released by an order of 
the general. Yet there are among these men several 



ANCIENT CISTERNS AT HIPPO. 367 

sentenced for a very long period, and some even for 
life, and under sucli circumstances it is difficult to 
conceive that there should not be many desperate 
characters. Certainly, however, if manners and 
physiognomy are any test, the discipline was very 
effective.* It should not be omitted, from the 
description of this prison, that, although excellent 
provision appeared to be made for the spiritual ame- 
lioration of the prisoners, no diminution of the time of 
imprisonment ever follows as the reward of real or 
supposed moral improvement. This regulation is, in 
my opinion, an extremely wise one, not only as a 
protection against hypocrisy, but in the interests of 
the character of the penitent himself. No man who 
really repents of a crime wishes to be spared the 
temporal punishment for it. On the contrary, its 
expiation by suffering is essential to the recovery of 
his self-respect ; just as no honest bankrupt, if fortune 
afterwards smiles upon him, is easy till he has repaid 
his creditors in full. 

The only visible ancient remains of Hippo consist 
of a set of cisterns on the north-east side of the 
mamelon which has been described above, and a 
bridge across the Boujermah, about a furlong below 
them, the Boujermah running close under the western 
side of the mamelon. The town probably extended 

* At the time I visited tlie Kasbah of Bona, there were only 251 
inmates ; 200 had been removed to Toulon a few days before. 



368 MOUTH OF EIVER CLOSED. 

to the south-east of the latter, taking in the other little 
hill, and reaching as far as the Seybouse, on the banks 
of which is a quay of Roman foundations. Very near 
here must have been the mouth of the Seybouse, and 
the port of Hippo, in the fifth century of the Christian 
era ; for at that time there was free entrance for sea- 
going ships, whereas the deposits of the two rivers 
have now closed the Seybouse even to coasting vessels 
of more than five or six tons, and the Boujermah to 
everything but quite small boats. One day while I 
was at Bona, a native procession took place for the 
purpose of supplicating for the removal of the drought, 
and some Arab boys, carrying flags, walked across the 
mouth of the river. Yet this stream appears to bring 
down greater deposits than the other. It has left a 
bar extending continuously from the town quite across 
the line of the stream of the Seybouse ; so that to pass 
out to sea, a boat from the latter river would be obliged, 
after passing the mouth of the Seybouse, to stand to 
the eastward for some distance in order to get round 
the extremity of the bar of the Boujermah. 

The cisterns themselves seem to have originally 
consisted of two blocks containing three each, a thick 
wall being built between the two blocks, on the top 
of which a passage ran for the purpose of afibrding 
access to the interior for repairs or cleansing. It 
communicated with a similar one that ran along the 
backs of the two blocks, and separated them from 



TOMB OE ST. AUGUSTINE. 369 

a large swimming bath, which might have been 120 
feet long and near 50 broad. This bath was not 
supplied from any one of the six original cisterns (which, 
I conceive, were appropriated for the drinking water 
of Hippo), but from a seventh smaller cistern, built 
on to the north-west side of these. As the swimming 
bath and the six original cisterns form a parallelogram, 
the regularity of the whole area is preserved by a 
mass of buildings in continuation of the seventh, 
which appear to have contained vapour baths, and 
apartments for attendants. On an esplanade above 
the level of the cisterns, the French ecclesiastics have 
erected a kind of altar tomb to the great bishop of 
Hippo, and surmounted it with a statue of diminutive 
size but fair execution, representing the saint bestow- 
ing his benediction on the French town which lies 
before him. I was told that a portion of the genuine 
relics was preserved there ; but however this may 
be, there can be no doubt that the site is destined for 
a future cathedral; and it is difficult to conceive a 
more striking position for such an edifice. From 
hence the hill of the Kasbah is a mile or a mile and 
a half to the north-north-east, with the Boujermah 
entering the sea immediately after passing close under 
its south-east foot. Sweeping eastwards from this 
point the eye passes over the roads of Bona, until 
at the east-north-east appears the termination of the 
hills which form the eastern side of the valley of the 

B B 



370 SEARCH EOR THE AQUEDUCT. 



Seybouse. On the western side of the Boujermah is 
a low fertile plain extending about a mile in breadth 
from the river, backed by steep mountains covered with 
wood. Immediately below the spectator is a grove 
of wild olives of many hundred years old, growing 
in all probability over the ruins of the ancient Hippo. 
Here and there are clearances, occupied by small 
European farms, belonging to Frenchmen, but in 
almost all cases let to Maltese. The other mamelon 
which has been mentioned is crowned with a building, 
which I believe the French have converted into an 
hospital; but I did not visit it. On the top of the 
hill of the cisterns is also a building apparently of 
Moorish construction, which has been used as a 
block-house, but it is now in ruins. I took a great 
deal of pains to discover some trace of the aqueduct 
which supplied the cisterns of Hippo with water, 
but did not succeed. It must, I think, have come 
from the hills which divide the two rivers ; but 
although the mamelon from which the cisterns are 
excavated is entirely detached from these,* not a 
vestige of any constructions remains in the plain 

* Sir Grenville Temple erroneously describes the hill of the 
cisterns as connected with the mountains which back it. But at 
the time he was on the spot, it was dangerous to proceed even a 
mile from Bona without a strong military force, and his inspection 
was obviously confined to the north side of the mamelon. The 
danger from wild beasts of which he speaks must, I think, have 
been imaginary in the day-time ; although it is possible that the 
battues of General Youssouf have, since the time of his visit, altered 
the character of the neighbourhood in this respect. 



IRON MINES. 371 

between ; nor could I find any in the hills. As these 
latter however are covered with wood, detection of 
anything of the kind is much more difficult. 

There are some iron mines in the mountains eight 
or nine miles from Bona, the ore from which is 
brought to a smelting-house on the bank of the 
Seybouse by a tram-road, which however is not yet 
completed for the whole of the way. The works 
belong to a company whose operations seem as yet 
to have been confined to the making their own 
machinery : for no iron has yet been sold, although 
the company has been in action for ten or twelve 
years. The work at the smelting-house seemed going 
very languidly, although the superintendent told me 
that the ore was rich. I saw some negroes at work 
breaking it with hammers for the furnace. These 
men are satisfied to work for two francs and a half 
a day, and are preferred to Europeans, as they do not 
cease their operations on Sundays. There were also 
three Germans there, who seemed much dissatisfied 
with their position. They told me they never earned 
more than three francs in the day, — miserable payment 
indeed for the work of a smelting-house in Africa ! 

The hills in the immediate neighbourhood of Bona 
are composed of a limestone which in several instances 
is crystallized into marble ; and I was told that there 
were several quarries in the neighbourhood which 
promised to be profitable. But here, as everywhere 

B B 2 



372 WANT OF A PORT. 

else, good roads are wanted; and even if they were 
made, it seems impossible that any port can be 
created without an enormous expenditure. The roads 
of Bona are very unsafe, — far more so than those 
of Stora. The wrecks of two vessels on the bar 
were a melancholy proof before my eyes of this fact. 
Yet at the present time whatever is embarked has to 
be conveyed in quite small boats to ships in the 
roads. At Bona itself, there is no space for wharves. 
Possibly extensive quays might be constructed by the 
help of piles on the low plain between the rivers. 
But the expense would be frightful. An artificial 
channel would have to be made, and kept open : and 
this would involve engineering operations on a great 
scale. And in the meantime, the Prench go on 
blasting rocks and constructing batteries to defend 
the town against some imaginary enemy, although the 
whole trade of the place is not equal to that of the 
poorest fishing-town on the south coast of England. 



VOYAGE TO TUNIS. 



373 



CHAPTER XIIL 



On the 28th of April I embarked for Tunis 
on board the Erench mail steamer, and found 
the accommodations very clean and good, but the 
commander the most uncivil Erenchman it was ever 
my fortune to fall in with. We steamed out from 
Bona at about one o'clock in the afternoon, with 
a strong although favourable vnnd. The ship was 
very narrow and quite light, and rolled terribly; 
to such an extent that when I lay down in my berth 
at night I was thrown from side to side, and should 
have been actually pitched out had I not pulled 
up the board at the side of the berth to considerably 
above its proper height, and converted the bed into 
a regular child's crib. Elowever we made a remark- 
ably quick passage; and on waking early in the 
morning, and finding no motion, I concluded that 
we must have got round Cape Earina (the Promon- 
torium ApoUinis of Phny), which forms the western 
extremity of the Gulf of Tunis. I therefore got up, 
and on reaching the deck found my conjecture verified. 



374 PILGTIIMS TO MECCA. 

It was about four o'clock, and as the liglit gradually 
appeared, the low flat land of the beach of the Goletta 
showed itself, with high mountains (as they seemed) 
rising on the eastern side of it. Soon after four o'clock 
we dropped our anchor about a mile from the Goletta. 
This is the name given, originally by the Venetians, 
to the narrow entrance in the bank of sand which 
separates the Lake of Tunis from the sea. It was, 
however, not till nearly eight o'clock that we were 
enabled to land. We had about fifty Arabs on board 
as deck passengers, who w^re going on a pilgrimage 
to Mecca; and they were here to be transferred to 
another vessel which was to take them oh to Alexan- 
dria. The poor creatures were treated with a degree 
of discourtesy and want of common humanity which 
was very painful to witness. Soon after the ship 
let fall her anchor, the agent of the other steamer 
boarded us, and the captain immediately requested 
him " avoir la complaisance de me debarrasser de ce 
vermin la." It was very natural that he should wish 
to get rid of any or all of his passengers, and no 
doubt it is rather difficult to make an Arab stir from 
any position he has taken up : but ruffianism never 
helps matters on. I came afterwards from Malta to 
Gibraltar in an English steamer where we had nearly 
a hundred pilgrims returning from Mecca to Morocco; 
and although the class of skippers is certainly a lower 
one socially in England than in France, the constitu- 



EUmANISM OF FRENCH SAILORS. 375 

tional good nature and good feeling of the British 
seaman exhibited itself in the conduct both of com- 
mander and crew to these poor people throughout 
a tedious voyage of six days ; and when we reached 
our destination, I believe not a man, woman, or child 
quitted the ship without a friendly feeling towards 
the English. But in the debarkation at Tunis, 
when a boat at last came alongside, the packs of the 
pilgrims were fished up from the hold and tumbled — 
not seldom kicked — with an ostentatious carelessness 
into it. Of course the owner continually poked 
himself forward, with the nervous manner of an 
unprotected female, to snatch at some pot or pan 
or basket which he fancied in peril; and this pro- 
ceeding, which a very few words of Arabic would 
have prevented altogether, was met by seizing him 
by the neck and hurling him back by main force. 
At last, w^hen the luggage was safely stowed in the 
yawl, the pilgrims had to follow it. By bringing 
the boat round to the ladder-side of the steamer the 
whole party might have descended in an orderly 
manner in three minutes. This however would, I 
fancy, have been considered a breach of etiquette, 
and disrespectful to the cabin passengers. The Arabs 
were sent down the rope-ladder, and when this pro- 
ceeding, from their nervousness, their exhaustion from 
sea-sickness, and the encumbrance of their huge 
bournouses, naturally occasioned some delay, the poor 



376 HOTELS AT TUNIS. 

wretclies were forced by menaces to jump from the 
side of the steamer into the boat as she lay surging, 
a height of eight or nine feet. Some of them were 
aged and even infirm men, of sixty or seventy years 
old, who fell and rolled on the pile of luggage ; and 
in several instances a very unseemly spectacle was 
presented and even danger incurred. FtB victis, 
when the Gaul is the conqueror ! The French sailors, 
and, I am ashamed to say, some of the passengers, 
considered the whole affair as an excellent joke. One 
of the greatest obstacles, in fact, which the Govern- 
ment have to surmount in reconciling the native 
population of North Africa to their newly imposed 
yoke, arises from their treatment generally by the 
bourgeoisie, who hate them as the Calcutta shop- 
keepers do the Hindoos, the more for the fear which 
underlies their dislike. By the military the common 
Arab is rarely ill-treated, although the insolence of 
command sometimes unnecessarily galls the pride of 
some ancient native chief; and the high offices of 
administration are generally filled by persons who 
feel the responsibility of their position, and act as 
statesmen, if not as Christians, in their relations to 
the subject class. 

There are only two hotels at Tunis in which an 
European can find quarters, and in one only of these 
are the bedrooms provided with doors, and the doors 
with fastenings. This, the Hotel de France, is kept 



JEWISH TAX-FARMERS. 377 

by a very obliging person, but the accommodations 
are extremely inadequate when there is any pressure 
produced by the arrival of a steamer. I was obhged 
to content myself with a small room in which I was 
nearly suffocated by the heat, the summer weather 
having set in earher than usual this year. Tunis is 
eight or ten miles from the Goletta, and the traveller 
may proceed thither either in a carriage, or by a boat 
across the lake. I preferred the latter, as there was 
a capital breeze ; and we ran the distance in less tban 
an hour, being obliged to tack once only. There 
are a few houses at Goletta, of the same kind which 
may be seen at Gosport, and a custom-house where 
the luggage is searched without any vexatious rigour. 
On landing at Tunis, you are introduced into another 
custom-house, where the same form is repeated, and 
a small fee demanded. The customs are farmed by 
Jews, — the "publicans" under Turkish conquerors 
in the nineteenth century, as their forefathers were 
under the Romans in the first. A fine looking middle- 
aged man, whose grave features might have served 
Leonardo for a study of St. Matthew, sat by superin- 
tending the operations of the clerk, and bowed me 
out of the apartment with a dignified courtesy which 
it was certainly worth more than a couple of piastres 
to witness. 

After making my toilette and breakfasting, I 
devoted the remainder of the day to rambling about 



378 INTERIOK OP TUNIS. 

the city; but although the Frank dress does not 
expose its wearer to insult, much greater circumspec- 
tion is requisite in the indulgence of curiosity than 
at Constantine. No mosque can be entered, — a 
circumstance which is unfortunate, as more than in 
any other city of North Africa, except perhaps Con- 
stantine, would one be likely to find the remains 
of antiquity imbedded in modern erections, the ruins 
of ancient Carthage having furnished for nearly 2,000 
years an almost inexhaustible quarry. But with 
the exception of one or two rows of columns, and 
walls supporting a tottering entablature, no traces of 
the Roman times appear in the streets of Tmnis. 
The upper part of the town contains the habitations 
of the Moors, and several bazaars ; the lower, which 
is comprised between an inner and an outer line of 
fortification, is appropriated to the Jews and Chris- 
tians, of which latter the chief part are Maltese. 
No words can describe the filth of this portion of 
Tunis. Dirt of every description chokes up the 
streets. It is never removed by any other agency 
than that of the storm rains ; and I was told that 
when these occurred, the town could not be traversed 
except actually on stilts. In the space between the 
two lines of wall, one continually comes on the ruins 
of houses which have fallen, and, according to Turkish 
precedent, been invariably allowed to remain ; and 
through it there creeps a ditch, the natural outfall 



ITS REPUTATION POE HEALTHINESS. 379 

of the accumulated filth, fouler than even the Pleet- 
ditch of the Dunciad. The mephitic exhalations of 
the place would, one would think, render the plague 
perennial; but, singularly enough, Tunis has a high 
reputation for healthiness as compared with other 
Mahometan cities. This has been accounted for in 
the prae-sanitarian times by the large amount of 
fragrant plants consumed in heating the baths of 
the place; but if the salubrity be real, and not as 
imaginary as the celebrated salmon with whose pro- 
perties King Charles is said to have puzzled the 
Royal Society, it is perhaps in some degree due to 
the fresh breeze which every day blows over the neigh- 
bouring lake. The streets, too, in very many instances 
meet overhead, and the layer of dirt with which 
they are lined is thus protected from the quickening 
influence of the sun, while the inhabitants, living in 
houses of which the windows open into square courts, 
are only exposed to the miasma of the streets when 
they have occasion to pass through them. At the 
same time, nothing can be more uncertain than the 
true rate of mortaUty in any Mahometan city. The 
repugnance which the Moslems feel for any shadow 
of interference with the privacy of their family life 
precludes the possibility of all accurate information. 
Even in Algiers the French have never ventured to 
enforce the registration of births and deaths among 
the Moorish population. 



380 TRADE WITH THE INTERIOR. 

The bazaars of Tunis are very extensive and much 
frequented, and the shopkeepers have the reputation 
of being fair dealers. Tunis is the staple of the 
native woollen and leather manufactures throughout 
the beyhk, and also receives those of Tripoli. It is 
likewise the natural outlet of the trade with Ghadames 
and Pezzan. Besides slippers and bournouses, the red 
cap, called a fez, which the natives wear over their 
bare heads, is a chief article of commerce. The 
Tunis caps are said to be dyed a finer and more 
lasting colour than any others. A similar supremacy 
exists in the matter of perfumes, especially attar 
of roses, for which there are a great number of 
shops in the bazaars. It has been mentioned above 
that Hadrian made, or restored, the road between 
Carthage and Theveste ; and by this route opened a 
communication with the oases of Biskra. This is the 
course which the trade with that part of Africa would 
even now take if Algeria were not in the hands of 
the Erench, and undoubtedly will take should their 
conquests extend eastward. But in the meantime, 
the unsettled state of the country south of El Kef 
(the Sicca Veneria of the Itinerary) effectually pre- 
vents the passage of caravans along this route. The 
whole of the frontier between Tunis and Algeria is 
as unsafe as that between Algeria and Morocco, and 
for the same reasons. I was informed, however, by 
Mr. Wood, the English Consul at Tunis, that the 



EXPEDITION TO CARTHAGE. 



381 



interior of the beylik miglit, in his opinion, be safely 
visited by an English traveller with the protection of 
a small escort of Tunisian soldiers ; and few localities 
present a more interesting field for the scholar. It 
would be necessary however in such an expedition to 
be furnished with a tent, and even with provisions; 
and it would be rash for any one to enter upon it 
who was not fairly master of the native language, and 
tolerably familiar with the manners of the wandering 
tribes. And after all, the following up the line of 
the ancient cities would necessarily carry the traveller 
across the frontier, and expose him to the risk of 
attack from the bad subjects on both sides, while 
under these circumstances he would probably find he 
must rely upon himself and his European companions 
for any efiectual defence. 

I set off very early the next morning after my 
arrival at Tunis for the site of ancient Carthage, 
with the intention of spending the whole of the day 
on the spot, returning at night, and repeating my 
visit the next day. There is a good road passing 
across the plain, on the western side of the Lake of 
Tunis, and in less than two hours a one-horse 
cabriolet driven by a Maltese took me to the hill 
of St. Louis, a point which in the flourishing days 
of Carthage was probably the highest part of the 
Byrsa (citadel). I differ however from those who 
believe that it is the locality Virgil had in his eye 



382 HILL OF ST. LOUIS. 

in the description lie gives of the early settlement 
effected by Dido. Its modern name is derived from 
the circumstance that King Louis of France pitched 
his camp here in his ill-fated expedition against Tunis 
in the year 1270. The French obtained a grant of 
the hill from the Tunisian Government shortly after 
their capture of Algiers, and vrithin the last three or 
four years have prepared the locality for conversion 
into a military position by building a wall around it. 
On the summit a chapel, which forms a landmark 
from a considerable distance around, is erected 
over the remains of the monarch, who was carried 
off by a fever soon after his arrival. The saintly 
virtues he exhibited in his first crusade, procured him 
such a reputation throughout Islam, that the natives 
at this day believe he became on his death-bed a 
convert to the religion of the Prophet, changed his 
name to Bou-Saed (Father of Happiness), and is 
actually interred in a village three or four miles 
to the north, called after him, Sidi Bou-Saed. To 
this village, on that very account, a character of 
extraordinary sanctity is attached. 

About one4hird of a mile from the hill of St. 
Louis, in a north-east direction, are the so-called 
Small Cisterns of Carthage, an oblong mass of 
building containing eighteen reservoirs for water. 
Sir Grenville Temple gives as the dimensions of 
each — 



THE SMALLER CISTERNS. 



383 



Length, 93 feet. 

Width, 19 feet 8 inches. 

Depth, 27 feet 6 inches. 
Of this last but seventeen feet were filled with water, 
the remainder serving only to support the vaulted 
roof with which the tanks were covered. I had no 
time to verify these measurements ; but there is every 
appearance that they are correct. In another par- 
ticular, however, I think Sir Grenville is in error, 
viz. in believing that these cisterns were supplied 
not by an aqueduct, but merely by rain-water. There 
is no trace (I think) of that which under such circum- 
stances is essential — a filtering tank for allowing the 
water to leave its deposits. From the elevation of 
the cisterns, too, it is not easy to point out any 
considerable area of surface which could be made 
to drain into them ; none (I think I may safely say), 
the annual rainfall upon which Avould fill them 
to anything like the height of seventeen feet. On 
the other hand, they are obviously intended for the 
supply of a large area. Only a few yards in their 
rear is a hill of which the top has been levelled. 
In the middle of the flat space is a parallelogram 
of stone, which can hardly be anything else than the 
base of the cella of a temple. The hill in question is 
connected by broken ground with the hill of St. Louis, 
which is certainly considerably higher, and commands 
the whole neii2:hbourhood. But between it and the 
cisterns there is a slight ravine, and before the 



384 THE BYRSA AND MAGAEIA. 

invention of gunpowder, the liill with the levelled 
top would be a natural citadel. Upon it, overlooking 
the sea, is a small Turkish fort called Burj Jedeed, 
and between this and the sea may be traced most 
distinctly the foundations of an ascent from the 
water's edge. The very moment that I saw this site, 
it struck me as being evidently the spot upon which 
the first permanent settlement would be made by 
trading adventurers. Just to the south of the hill, 
the Phoenician merchants would run their ships ashore 
on exactly such a beach as attracted ancient navi- 
gators. Scarcely under any circumstances would the 
least surf break upon it. The north-east by east is 
the only wind, if there be any at all, from which 
it is not effectually protected. The nomads who 
brought their wool, dates, slaves, and precious stones 
from the interior would pitch their tents, and the 
inhabitants of the immediate neighbourhood erect 
their gourhis, upon the wide flat space to the west 
and south-west of the hill of St. Louis ; while the 
marsh which formerly existed, where now is the 
shallowest part of the lake of Tunis, would furnish 
abundance of food for the animals and reeds for the 
gourhis. Here then were obviously the sites of the 
Magaria* and the Byrsa — of the Libyan fonduck 

* Magaria (or Magalia) became in Greek /xeyapa, by which name 
Poly bins and Appian call the fauxbourg of Carthage which subse- 
quently occupied this site. Bochart has pointed out the relation- 
ship of the word, which was obviously a native one, with the 
Hebrew niagurim (habitations). 



THE COTHON. 385 

and the fortified factory of tlie African Company" 
of the great commercial nation of antiquity. The 
whole scene mapped itself out to the imagination 
at a glance, in reply to the mental question, where- 
abouts on the line of coast could vessels, navigated 
as those of the ancients were, be safely brought to 
shore? I felt perfectly satisfied as to the answer, 
even before mounting the levelled area on the hill of 
Burj-Jedeed. When I did this, and found the founda- 
tions of the cella in the middle, it became obvious 
to me that here was the temple of ^sculapius, the 
aspect of which from the sea was a characteristic 
feature of ancient Carthage. Equally impossible is 
it to doubt of the position of the Cothon, the artificial 
dock — not really harbour — of the ancient city. The 
two portions into which it was divided may be 
distinctly observed from the top of the hill of St. 
Louis, as well as the island in the middle of the 
interior portion. Even the communication with the 
sea is still traceable ; although the disintegrated 
remains of the buildings which once surrounded it 
have left this a mere ditch, as similar causes have 
enormously diminished the size of the Cothon itself. 

The elevated ground, of which the hill of St. Louis 
forms the southern extremity, continues along the line 
of the coast for three or four miles, its crest being on 
an average about three-quarters of a mile from the 
sea, towards which the ground falls gently, intersected 



386 PROBABLE ALTERATION OF LEVEL 

here and there with ravines. For the distance just 
mentioned, the direction is about north-north-east; 
"but on arriving at Sidi Bou-Saed, where its elevation 
is the greatest, the plateau turns suddenly to the 
north-west, and soon descends rapidly to the level of 
the plain. Presently another hill rises, called Djebel 
Gomart, and beyond this is a large tract of low 
marshy ground, extending as far as the foot of the 
mountains which run in an easterly direction, and 
end in Cape Farina. All along the sea-line, from 
the immediate neighbourhood of the Cothon as far 
as this marsh, foundations of buildings are traceable 
in the water ; and between the hills of Sidi Bou-Saed 
and Djebel Gomart, a village in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of the sea, where the present Bey of Tunis 
has a country palace, is at this day called El Mersa 
(the Port). The marshy ground just noticed extends 
to the south-west as far as the low hills, upon one of 
which the kazbah of Tunis stands. If we suppose the 
level of the whole neighbourhood to sink some twenty 
feet, the low prairie would be converted into a sort 
of sea-loch, winding in the direction of south-east by 
south, and reducing the present wide plain of Tunis 
to a narrow strip of land. The bar of sand which 
separates the lake of Tunis from the sea would be 
washed away, and the latter would come up nearly to 
the walls of the present town. Such an imaginary 
state of things corresponds, 1 believe, very nearly to 



IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. 387 

that which actually existed at the time when Carthage 
the Great was destroyed. It is necessary as an hypo- 
thesis for the purpose of understanding the accounts 
of Polybius and Appian, almost all the details of 
which are brought into perfect harmony by it ; and 
as the former was, so to speak, on the staff of the 
Roman commander when the city was taken, while in 
this part of his history, unfortunately lost, he is repre- 
sented by the latter, these two authorities stand on 
a totally different footing from any others which have 
came down to us, whose accounts are in all cases at 
best second-hand.* 

At the time of the third Punic war, it seems certain 
(if we take Polybius, and, where he fails us, Appian, 
as adequate evidence) that the harbour of Carthage 
was on the western side of a peninsula of which the 
north-west and north-east extremities are represented 
by Djebel Gomart and Sidi Bou-Saed respectively, 
while its neck was no more than twenty -five stades 
(two-and-a-half geographical miles) across. And not 
only was the harbour on the western side of this 
peninsula, but its mouth looked to the westward, and 
vessels sailing out of it got at once into the open sea, 

* Strabo is, I believe, no exception. He sailed along the coast, 
but there cannot be a greater contrast than the description he gives 
of this, and that of a part of Egypt which it is certain he per- 
sonally visited. The remark in the text is not, however, intended 
to apply to Procopius ; but the Carthage of his time is the city 
Augustus and Hadrian restored, not that which Scipio destroyed. 

c c 2 



388 



TOPOGRAPHY GIVEN BY 



Utica, which was so situated that the two cities could 
be seen from one another, was also at this time ujpon 
the sea. The Romans made use of it as the base of 
their naval operations, and there was so much water 
in the immediate neighbourhood of Carthage, that 
they could bring their ships close up to the shore of 
the latter, and from them not only use their missiles 
with effect, but constantly menace — and in one 
instance actually attempt — escalade of the wall of the 
town. In the neighbourhood of the mouth of the 
harbour, there ran off from the Isthmus a long spit 
of land, about 100 yards broad, called "the Tongue," 
in a westerly direction, separating the open sea from 
" a lake." Across this lake Scipio carried a part of 
the troops with which he captured the military camp 
at Nepheris ; so that it must have been navigable at 
least for boats. The spit ran so near to the mouth of 
the Carthaginian harbour, that he formed the idea of 
preventing the egress of their galleys by running a 
mole from it across the mouth ; and he proceeded 
sufficiently far in his scheme to alarm the enemy, and 
induce them to cut another opening while he was so 
engaged. f Outside of the harbour, and seaward of 

■* Strabo says that the distance from Carthage across to the 
opposite shore was sixty stades, and from the landing-place to the 
town of Nepheris, high up in the mountains, 120 more. 

f It is generally assumed that Scipio actually closed the mouth of 
the harbour, and this was the way in which his operation was talked 
of at Rome (Appian, viii. 134). But in the narrative of the actual 
proceedings this does not appear ; and in fact rather the contrary is 



POLYBIUS AND APPIAN. 



389 



the old mouth (and probably of the new one also), 
was an extensive quay, running along in front of the 
town-wall, upon which the merchants frequenting the 
harbour used to pile up their cargoes. It was so 
broad, that in their apprehension that the Romans 
might occupy it in force, the townspeople built out a 
low fort in front of it to prevent such a catastrophe.* 
Scipio did eventually attack this quay from the water- 
side by means of floating towers and other machines 
of the like kind ; but on his first attack the Cartha- 
ginians got at these, some by wading and some by 
swimming, and succeeded in burning the whole, and 
infusing an almost fatal panic into the attacking force. 

On the south of the town, looking in the direction 
of the mainland, was the Byrsa, with a triple line of 

implied. The larger ships of the Carthaginians were prevented from 
getting back into the harbour by the new mouth, because the smaller 
vessels preceding them fell foul of one another. Several of them 
were captured from this circumstance ; but yet, after night-fall, 
those which remained "escaped into the town" (Appian, viii. 123). 
Scipio, after this affair, changed his tactics, and succeeded in effecting 
the object for which he had desired to close the harbour by other 
means. 

* TraparetxicTjLia ^paxv is the expression of Appian ; and he once 
afterwards calls it ^iareixia-na. The commentators are sadly puzzled 
to explain the matter. I conceive it to have been a redoubt built 
out into the sea from the middle of the face of the quay. It cannot 
have been merely a breastwork alon^ the quay ; for when it was 
attacked, the Carthaginians resisted (says the historian) by missiles 
both from the quay and from it. And it must have run out into the 
water ; for Scipio attacked it with battering-rams^ brought on floating 
rafts. The term §tareixio-/ia seems very appropriate to it as breaking 
the line of the quay, especially if the redoubt were completed, and 
armed on its inner side as well as its outer. 



390 DEFENCE OF CARTHAGE 

fortifications. Each wall was forty-five feet high and 
thirty thick, strengthened by towers of double the 
height. The walls contained a double range of case- 
mates, in which was stabling for 300 elephants and 
4,000 horses, and barrack- room for 20,000 infantry 
and 4,000 cavalry, besides stores of provision for the 
whole. From this immense fort a line ran past 
" the Tcngue,'' and bent towards the harbours. The 
"angle" so formed was the only low and weak part 
of the fortifications.* 

The defence of Carthage was in many respects an 
anticipation of that of Sebastopol. In both cases the 
assailants were masters of the sea, and at first only of 
a few points on the land, while the besieged defended 
themselves by means of fortified camps established 
in commanding positions outside of the town. The 
principal of these was under the walls of Nepheris, a 
city high up in the mountains, to be looked for in 
the direction of Djebel Ksharpta, to the north-west of 
Carthage. It cut off" all communication between Utica 
and the interior of the country, and served as a point 
on which to accumulate stores from the whole of the 
neighbourhood. The next most important station 
was one not far from Carthage, apparently on one of 
the hills to the west of the modern Tunis. Under its 

^ ycovia fie ^ napa rrjv ykooa-crav eK rovSe rov Tet^ou? eTrt roiis 
Xcfievas irepuKap.TVTCV, da-Bevrjs rjv fiovr) Koi Taircivr] Koi rjixeXrjTO dpxrjs. 
Appian, viii. 95. 



LIKE THAT OP SEBASTOPOL. 



391 



protection convoys of provision were constantly enabled 
to enter Carthage by land, passing along the narrow 
isthmus of less than three miles broad. On their 
part the E^omans had also two fortified camps, one 
close by the root of " the Tongue,"^ menacing the 
vulnerable point of the enemy's fortifications between 
the Byrsa and the harbours ; the other on the isthmus, 
but resting on the eastern side of it.f Both were 

* This either was, or was in close juxtaposition to, a naval camp 
(vavo-Tadixos) like that of the Greeks in the neighbourhood of Troy, 
according to the description in the Iliad. In the latter case, it can 
hardly be doubtful that the naval camp was actually on " the Tongue." 

f The position of the Eoman camps is clearly marked out by the 
following passages. At the outbreak of hostilities the consul 
Manihus attacked the enemy on the land side, dno rrjs rjireipov Kara 
Tov avx^va, eyx<^cro>v Te rr^v rdcfypov, KoX ^paxv emTeLxifrfxa to ctt' avrrj 
^laaofievos Kai eir eKetvco ra vyj/tjXa Teixq, while at the same time 
Censorinus attempted to storm it from the sea at the weak angle 
(/cXt/xaKas €K re yr}s Ka\ vecap i7re(f)epe Kara ttjv ivTeXrj tov tclxovs yuiviav). 
They had not expected any resistance, and after being twice repulsed 
by the townspeople, they began to apprehend serious consequences 
from Asdrubal, who had fortified a camp close in their rear {omcrdev 
(T<^S>v vTvep Trjv XijjiVTjv ovK €K fjLaKpov diaaTrjixaTos). Accordingly they 
each entrenched themselves, Censorinus on the lake under the 
town walls (eTri Tijs Xifjivrjs vtto toIs Telx^cn tcov TroXejuicoz/), and 
Manilius in the isthmus {ev rta avxevi r?)? is ttjv Tjireipov odov, Appian, 
viii. 97). Censorinus then increased the breadth of the spit by a 
mole, and brought two enormous rams, each worked by 6,000 men, 
to bear on the wall. A partial breach was made, and the Eomans 
attempted to storm, but were repulsed, and the rams destroyed 
(§ 98). Then came the hot weather, and Censorinus's troops began 
to die of fever, from being stationed on the lake, and close under 
very high walls, which kept off the sea-breeze. He therefore moved 
his camp on to the sea {i. e. moved further along " the Tongue," so 
as to get from under the lee of the high walls, and catch the sea- 
breeze). Then the Carthaginians in their turn took advantage of the 
sea-breeze, and sent fire-rafts before the wind on to his ships, which 
burnt the greater part of them (§ 99). For the production of this 
effect, the wind must have been north, or nearly so. A line drawn 



392 



SUCCESS OE THE BESIEGED. 



supplied with provisions by sea from Utica, coming 
in the one instance to the western, and in the other 
to the eastern side of the peninsula of Carthage. 
Galleys also from XJtica watched the mouth of the 
harbour of Carthage when the weather permitted; 
but when a strong wind blew from the sea, this 
became impossible, and advantage was taken of these 
occasions to run cargoes of provisions. Thus, in spite 
of the unparalleled perfidy of the Eomans at the out- 
break of the war, by which the Carthaginians had 
been induced to give up all their ships, the chances 
of success were for two years balanced, or, if anything, 
appeared rather to lie with the besieged. The Romans 
were baffled in every attempt to force the Cartha- 
ginian lines, and an expedition against Nepheris nearly 
cost the consul who undertook it the whole of his 
force. No ground had been gained by the assailants ; 
and with the stores they had in their arsenal, the 
besieged were enabled, by the spring of the third year, 
to equip a new fleet, by means of which they all but 
succeeded in turning the tables on their assailants, who 

from the western extremity of the hill of Sidi Bou-Saed to the low 
land below the Great Cisterns, will, I believe, towards its southern 
extremity, approximate to the limits of the coast, and from near 
there I concjeive " the Tongue " to have run out westward. Between 
this locality and El Mersa I should search for indications of the 
Carthaginian harbour and its quay, the wind which enabled the 
besiegers to burn Censorinus's ships blowing through the gap 
between the hill of Sidi Bou-Saed and Djebel Gomart. That the 
camp of Manihus approached the eastern side of the isthmus appears 
from Appian, viii. 100. 



THE MAGARIA. 393 

had in tlie meantime become terribly demoralized. 
Fifty triremes, besides smaller vessels, had been built 
without the Romans entertaining the slightest sus- 
picion of the matter ; the new mouth of the harbour, 
which had been secretly cut,* was opened in the 
night, and when the fleet, called into existence as if 
by magic, sailed out, the besiegers were struck with 
panic. Not a ship was manned, and if the Cartha- 
ginians had at once attacked them, the whole " naval 
camp" of the Romans (says the historian) would have 
fallen into the hands of the enemy. Unfortunately, 
they contented themselves with merely making a 
demonstration, and returned into the harbour. Two 
days afterwards they again rowed out and offered 
battle, but now their enemies were prepared for them. 
In the action which followed, they were unsuccessful, 
and Scipio, who had the command of the besieging 
force, gave them no more breathing-time. 

The Magaria at this time consisted of a kind of 
fauxbourg, surrounded by a wall of no great strength^ 
and laid out in gardens intersected with hedges, and 
watered by artificial irrigation. Probably the Great 
Cisterns — which stand in the immediate neighbour- 
hood — supplied a part of their water for this purpose 

* Livy, in his account of the operation, represented the besieged 
as actually digging a new i^ort, not merely a new mouth to the exist- 
ing one. This was in one of the lost books, but the epitome of it 
proves the fact. See the second note on page 388. 



394 



THE GREAT CISTERNS. 



These enormous reservoirs form now the habitation 
of a whole village, — Malakah. They are altogether 
dilapidated, and some entirely choked up, but their 
magnitude fills the spectator with amazement. Shaw 
says there are twenty of them, each of them above 
100 feet long and 30 broad. I very much doubt 
the exactness of these numbers,* but at the same 
time do not believe them to be in the least 
exaggerated. A road passes over a portion of the 
reservoir, and caution is requisite to avoid some large 
holes in the roof, which gape in the middle of it. 
Indeed, the whole of this locality abounds in dangers 
of this kind. On a later day, in walking on the side 
of the hill of St. Louis, I observed several openings, 

* He says that their level is lower than that of the "Small 
Cisterns." To me it appeared, judging by the eye, that the reverse 
was -unquestionably the case. My belief is that the latter received 
their overflow, and the pipes by which this arrangement was effected 
have been mistaken for an apparatus to collect rain-water. I unfor- 
tunately broke my barometer before leaving Constantino, and conse- 
quently could not ascertain the variations of level — the most import- 
ant of all elements in a topographical question — with any accuracy. 
But I have no doubt that Shaw is mistaken, and Mr. Davis, to whom 
I mentioned my view, informed me that it was certainly correct as 
to the relative elevations of the two systems. I may add, that my 
opinion as to the hill of Burj-Jedeed being the original Byrsa, and 
the ruin on it the temple of ^Esculapius, was confirmed by that 
gentleman, who had independently come to the same conclusion. 
With regard to Shaw, I cannot help saying that his description of 
the site of Carthage is so vague, that unless I had been over the 
ground myself I could scarcely form a conception of what he means, 
and so inaccurate that it becomes necessary to suppose it written 
from an old recollection assisted by no notes taken on the spot or at 
best by very imperfect ones. And this is far from the only part of 
his book in which a want of exactness has excited my surprise. 



THE AQUEDUCT. 395 

which, on a slight examination, showed themselves 
unmistakably to be holes in the vaulted roofs of 
huge storehouses or cellars. The Great Cisterns are 
the termination of the gigantic aqueduct which 
brought spring-water to Carthage from the mountain 
of Zaghwan. All that part of the latter which is 
visible from the site of the town bears the stamp 
of wilful destruction. Huge masses of stones fixed 
in cement lie along the plain, showing the direction 
which the aqueduct followed. Its whole course, 
which extended for no less than fifty-two miles, 
may be traced; and in some places the piers and 
arches still stand, rising sometimes to a height of 
more than ninety, but generally to between fifty and 
sixty feet above the plain. In estimating the utility 
of this stupendous work, it should not be forgotten 
that it was probably constructed not only to supply 
Carthage with water, but to irrigate at least some 
portion of the land between its two extremities. The 
whole of the country between Dahkil Bashir (the 
promontory w^hich forms the eastern side of the gulf 
of Tunis) and the lake which existed to the west of 
Carthage, was filled with the mansions and model 
farms of the Carthaginian citizens, whose passion for 
agriculture was equal to that of the English. But 
in Barbary successful cultivation implies copious irri- 
gation ; and ample as the stream might be which was 
poured into the cisterns at Malakah, this was only the 



ERENCH COLLECTIONS, 

ijcJiai |e which remamed after the soil for many 
had been fertihzed by the precious fluid. 
3 French have collected a few tumulary inscrip- 
1 -uio, and one or two others of a more interesting 
dcsr . iption, in a little garden within the inclosure of the 
{ liapel of St. Louis. Among these is a very curious 
one which much puzzled me, from the reiterated 
asseriion of the gardien of the chapel that everything 
I saw had been found on the spot. It is in a frag- 
ment Iry condition ; but it relates to the completion 
of S5 rne arrangements for the water supply of the 
Co'pnia Thysdrensis," which included the laying 
(M. tile water to some private houses, under certain 
^.^;,xxv.xtions. As Thysdrus is, according to the Itinerary, 
by one road 141 Roman miles and by another 155, 
distant from Carthage, it excited no small wonder in 
me that a piece of stone should be brought so great a 
distance. The man persisted in his assertion, and 
actually went so far as to point out the very spot where 
the block, as well as a portion of a statue (probably 
of Apollo, who is mentioned in the inscription as the 
patron-god of the colony), had to his own personal 
knowledge been extracted from the soil. It certainly 
seemed unjustifiable scepticism to doubt any longer ; 
yet this story proved to be a gratuitous circum- 
stantial falsehood. I was fortunate enough the same 
morning to fall in with Mr. Davis, who is engaged in 
excavations at Carthage with the assistance of the 



ENGLISH EXCAVATIONS. 



397 



British Government, and from him I learnt that the 
collection I had seen came from different parts of the 
Beylik. I had already had ample experience of the 
utterly untrustworthy character of local information 
proceeding from uneducated men ; but I own I was 
unprepared for a resolute fiction, suggested by no 
conceivable motive — not even that of saving trouble. 

I found Mr. Davis hard at work with half-a-dozen 
Arabs, engaged in the task of removing a mosaic 
which he had recently laid open in the lower floors 
of a dwelling-house which had apparently belonged 
to an ordinary citizen of the Roman town, though 
one well-to-do in the world. The great merchants 
of Punic Carthage, like the millionaires of London, 
had their magnificent country seats, sumptuously fur- 
nished, several miles out of the city. The discoveries 
now making relate, I apprehend, to a much later 
period, and tell the story of a class coming as little 
into competition with their predecessors as the shop- 
keepers of Genoa or Venice do with the owners of 
the argosies which lay in those ports four hundred 
years ago.* It is very natural that strong interest 

* When the Romans destroyed Punic Carthage, they laid a solemn 
curse upon any future settlement that should be made either on the 
Byrsa or the Magaria ; that is, in that quarter which if fortified 
would command the isthmus, and secure the harbour against the 
attacks of a land force. The colony which Gracchus sent out 
attempted to settle upon this tabooed quarter, and hence, in the 
opinion of the Romans, the bad luck which cut short its existence. 
When Augustus founded Roman Carthage — the town of which Pliny 



398 



APPIAN A GUIDE 



should attach to everything great or sraall that comes 
from Carthage; and probably the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer would find some difficulty in obtaining 
grants of money for purely topographical investiga- 
tions producing no rapid returns in the shape of 
accessions to the British Museum. But here, as 
everywhere, a large basis of action would in the 
end give the most profitable results. Investigations 
so directed as to enable the explorer to define the 
ground-plan of the Punic city, would guide at once 
to the particular points where excavations could 
scarcely fail to produce a far more valuable harvest 
than any that is likely to reward a mere "pro- 
specting" for antiquities. I should greatly rejoice 

and Strabo speak — he was particularly careful to avoid the part 
under ban (Appian, viii. 136). If therefore the wall of Augustus's 
town can be found, it will necessarily exclude the Byrsa and the 
Magaria. This would lead me to look for no traces of it south of 
Malakah, and of the hill of St. Louis. The Roman element was a 
very small one in the new town ; for all the settlers, except 3,000, 
were taken from the Libyan population in the neighbourhood. In 
the account Procopius gives of the Vandal war, he invariably calls 
the inhabitants of the towns on the coast Libyans. They were 
Romans in the same sense in which St. Paul was, and strongly 
attached to the Roman cause ; whereas the inhabitants of the 
interior, whom Procopius calls Moors, readily joined with the 
Vandals. The p-olicy of Genseric was in fact to destroy the mer- 
cantile character of North Africa. The invading race became great 
landed proprietors on a military tenure, and the native population 
were conciliated by being encouraged to practice piracy on the coasts 
of Italy, Sicily, and Southern Greece. There is a considerable 
analogy between his system and that pursued by the Turks at 
Algiers. There the commercial Jews were oppressed as the 
" Libyans" were at Carthage and in the towns of Byzacium, and they 
hailed Bourmont as a deliverer just as the " Libyans" did BeHsarius. 



FOR THE TOPOGllAPHER. 399 

to find the activity and intelligence of Mr. Davis 
employed in carrying out more liberal instructions, 
than simply to dig for objects of amusement to 
hoHday folk in England. 

The account which Appian gives of the course 
of events in the actual storming of Carthage is very 
clear, and apparently likely to furnish a clue to the 
topographer, although it has its difficulties. During 
the year which preceded the arrival of Scipio to 
command the besieging army, the Romans seem 
to have entirely altered their plan of operations. 
The consul who commanded the camp on the isthmus 
employed the fine season in plundering the country, 
apparently giving up the idea of maintaining an 
effectual blockade of Carthage by land, or believing 
that to lay waste the country was the best means 
of stopping the supplies which came into the city. 
When Scipio arrived with his new levies, he found 
the army so demoralized by the way it had been 
employed, that he compared the camp to an assem- 
blage of hawkers at a fair, and began his reforms 
by expelling an enormous multitude of sutlers and 
camp followers. Asdrubal, who had previously been 
with the fortified camp at Nepheris, was now com- 
manding in Carthage itself; but the camp still 
remained with a very large force in it under another 
general. The other Carthaginian camp in the neigh- 
bourhood of Tunis appears to have been broken 



400 



OPEEATIONS or SCIPIO. 



up;* but on Scipio's arrival and encampment in 
the neighbourhood of the town, the besieged formed 
a paHsaded entrenchment at a distance of five stades 
(half a geographical mile) from their v^alls, and 
occupied it vi^ith 6,000 foot and 1,000 horse — all 
picked men — to vs^atch him. 

The first blow which he struck was an attempt 
upon the Magaria by night. He succeeded in occu- 
pying it ; but was afraid that his troops would be 
thrown into confusion by the obstacles which the 
ground within presented. He accordingly withdrew 
them, but his success had caused such a panic, 
that the Carthaginians retreated into the Byrsa. 
Their fears were even shared by the garrison of 
the entrenchment, which joined the flight of the 
rest, and the whole burst into the Byrsa together. In 
the morning Scipio immediately seized the opportunity 
given by this retrograde movement, burnt the palisade, 
and having the command of the whole isthmus, at 
once formed an oblong camp extending nearly across 
from sea to sea, the side next the town being only 
a bowshot from the enemy. f In the middle of this 

* The object of this camp having been to secure the arrival 
of convoys of provisions hy the way of the isthmus, it would 
naturally be abandoned as soon as the difficulty of getting them in 
ceased. Appian does not mention the breaking up of the camp ; 
but it is implied in the fact of Asdrubal forming another entrench- 
ment outside the walls (viii. 114). 

t The width of the isthmus here was twenty-five stades : conse- 
quently, the southern wall of Punic Carthage (or a fauxbourg) must 
have come down quite to the narrowest part. 



HIS WINTER CAMPAIGN. 401 

" a very high tower'' was built, and above it again, 
a wooden scaffold four stories high, from the top of 
which Scipio could see what was going on within 
Carthage. The construction of these works occupied 
twenty days, the whole army being employed, and 
working night and day, under the enemy's fire. 
When they were at last finished, the communication 
by land with the town was entn^ely prevented. 

The next step was the attempt upon the mouth 
of the harbour, and the quay beyond it, which has 
been already mentioned. The besieged repulsed the 
first attack upon the redoubt, but it was repeated with 
a different result ; the quay was occupied, and a 
work erected upon it as high as the town wall, 
from which the Roman soldiers, being on equal terms 
with their enemies, plied their weapons successfully. 
This work was garrisoned with 4,000 men. 

The winter now impended, and Scipio ventured 
on a bold move, which proved decisive. By a com- 
bined operation, himself crossing the lake with some 
troops, and sending another officer round it with 
others, he assembled a formidable force in the neigh- 
bourhood of the entrenched camp at Nepheris, threw 
up a work two stades from it, and left a Numidian 
force in this, with orders to harass the camp of 
the enemy incessantly. In the sequel, he succeeded 
in forcing the Carthaginian entrenchment under 
circumstances which produced a general panic ; and, 

D D 



402 ATTACK ON THE COTHON 

after almost annihilating the army which occupied 
it, he captured Nepheris, at the close of a siege 
of twenty days in mid-winter. This exploit completed 
the operations which had for their object the starving 
Carthage out. On this capture of Nepheris and 
the destruction of the army, the whole of Libya soon 
passed over into the hands of the Romans. 

Early in the spring, Scipio made an attack on the 
Byrsa and the Cothon.* Asdrubal, in fear that he 
could not defend it, "set fire to the square portion 
of the Cothon;" and still expecting that Scipio would 
attempt to get in, suffered his attention to be diverted 
from the " circular" part, into which Lselius, attacking 
it from the other side unexpectedly, forced his way. 
The whole wall of the Cothon was mastered; and 
from thence Scipio seized the agora, "which was 
near." Here he passed the night under arms. The 
next morning he sent for 4,000 fresh men. They 
came, but at once fell to plundering a temple of 
Apollo which stood there, and could not be induced 
to act against the enemy till they had secured the 
gold with which the image and the shrine were 
overlaid. 

Erom the agora, three narrow \ streets, "filled with 

* There is nothing at all in Appian to show that there was any 
connexion between the Cothon and the harbour of which Scipio had 
attempted to block the mouth. 

f (TTcvconoi The streets were doubtless like those described above. 
(Chapter II.) The Carthaginian mansions were built on the same 



AND THE BYRSA. 



403 



houses of six stories high/' led up to the Byrsa, 
where the greater part of the troops had taken refuge. 
The Romans forced their way into the houses next to 
the agora, mounted to their tops, crossed from one 
side of the street to the other by planks as occasion 
required, and thus fought their way up. 

On arriving at the Byrsa, Scipio commanded the 
three streets to be set on fire simultaneously, in order 
to throw down the houses, and obtain a sufficiently 
level area for military operations. This result was 
effected in six days and .nights, the general " seeing 
what was going on from a high position," where he sat 
down when at last overcome with fatigue. 

On the seventh day, some individuals came to him 
wearing the garb appropriate to suppliants of JEscu- 
lapius, the temple of which deity was " in the acro- 
polis, conspicuous in appearance and rich above all 
others." They proposed to leave the Byrsa if only 
their lives were spared, and Scipio consented, ex- 
cepting none but deserters from the terms. Upon 
this fifty thousand men, women, and children imme- 
diately passed out through a narrow opening in a 
redoubt ; the deserters, to the number of about nine 
hundred, with the wife and two sons of Asdrubal, 
threw themselves into the temple of iEsculapius. To 

type as at present in Barbary, but on a much larger scale, — of six 
stories instead of two or three. The " narrow streets" are the mere 
interval left between these houses. 

D D 2 



404 LIMITS OF THE BYESA 

the precinct {reixevos) of this, a staircase of sixty steps 
led up, the remaining part of the circuit being preci- 
pitous. Consequently the small band were able to 
defend themselves for some time ; and when hunger 
and fatigue diminished their numbers, they retired 
from the precinct into the temple itself, and mounted 
to the roof. Here was the end of the resistance. 
The deserters set the temple on fire and destroyed 
themselves in it, the wife of Asdrubal stabbing her 
two children, and casting their bodies and herself 
with them into the flames. 

It seems impossible to doubt, from this description, 
that whether the hill of St. Louis is, or is not, iden- 
tical with what Appian understands by the Byrsa, it 
was at any rate included in it. The garrison of the 
Magaria, and that of the palisade half a mile to the 
south of the town wall, retreated into the Byrsa on 
the occasion of Scipio's night attack. It must, there- 
fore, have been near to the scene of his operations, 
and it would be useless to look for it far away to the 
north in the direction of Sidi Bou-Saed. But if the 
hill of St. Louis be identical with the Byrsa, it is 
difficult to conceive fifty thousand persons within its 
walls. The temple of ^sculapius, too, must in this 
view be supposed on its summit, where the chapel of 
St. Louis now is. But neither is there a sufficiently 
flat surface there for the precinct of a large temple, 
nor do the sides of the hill immediately below the 



IN THE EIRST AND LAST DAYS. 405 

summit answer to the description given above. If we 
adopt the alternative, and suppose the hill of St. Louis 
to be occupied by a fortification, and to constitute a 
sort of citadel within the Byrsa, the key to the whole 
— dominating as it does the whole neighbourhood, — 
many difficulties will be removed. My own idea, 
derived from the cursory survey I was enabled to take 
of the locality, is, that the original acropolis, the 
Byrsa of the first settlers mythicised in the story of 
Dido, is the hill of Burj-Jedeed. As the trading 
factory grew into a powerful city, it would soon 
include the hill of St. Louis within its circuit, and 
then the necessity of making this the citadel becomes 
obvious. Hence, quite naturally, would arise that 
state of things which may be conceived to have 
existed in the flourishing times of Punic Carthage. 
The fortifications of the new Byrsa w^ould include the 
old one, and the name be extended to the whole.* 
Thus the temple of ^sculapius might properly be 
said to be on the Byrsa (or the acropolis) — even on 
the hypothesis that it occupied the hill of Burj-Jedeed 
— not only in the wider sense of the word, but 
because it stood on the ground which originally had, 
and in common parlance very likely retained, that 
name.f The levelled top of Burj-Jedeed, the founda- 

* Just as the " city" of Paris grew from the island on the Seine to 
its present dimensions. 

f It must be remembered that Byrsa simply means "fort," 
answering to the Burg, or Bury, or Trvpyos, or Perg-ama of the Indo- 



406 DJEBEL GOMART. 

tions of the cella in the middle of the area, and the 
steep sides (making due allowance for the accumula- 
tion of debris) fully justify the character of strength 
which Appian attributes to the site as a temporary 
position for the desperate band which seized it. 

On the other hand, it was to be expected that 
Scipio, looking to the grand result, should direct his 
operations against the dominating point of the Byrsa 
— the hill of St. Louis. Possessing that, the reduction 
of the remainder of Carthage was only a question of 
time. Having secured this point, he might without 
risk yield to the demands of nature for rest ; and the 
besieged seeing him in possession of it, had nothing 
left bat to beg for their lives. It may be added that 
this is the only " high position, from which he could 
have a view of all that was going on." 

Mr. Davis was polite enough to invite me to spend 
a day at his country-house, a Moorish villa in the 
neighbourhood of Djebel Gomart, which has been 
noticed above as occupying the north-west extremity 
of the peninsula over which the Punic Carthage was 
built. He has for his immediate neighbours a village 
of stationary Arabs, with whom he is on the best 
terms ; and his knowledge of their language enables 
him to exercise an influence over them, which without 

Teutonic languages. Aldermanburj, Bucklersbury, Aldgate, and New- 
gate are names which remain long after their original appropriate- 
ness has ceased. 



DJEBEL KHAWEE. 407 

this accomplishment would be quite impossible. They 
supply him with game, chiefly quails, in return for 
a little gunpowder ; and it is from among them that 
he obtains workmen for his excavations. They are 
not inferior in physical appearance to the English 
labourer, but their powers of endurance are by no 
means equal, and their dislike of regular work is even 
greater than their avarice. Sometimes they will slink 
away in the middle of some task, especially during 
the Ramadan, when they rigorously observe the com- 
mand to fast, and of course are enfeebled for any 
vigorous exertion before the middle of the dav. 

The hill Djebel Khawee, a part of the Djebel 
Gomart, is apparently one vast necropohs. From it 
was no doubt excavated some at least of the limestone 
used in the building of the town, and the quarries 
served, as in many similar instances, for catacombs. 
The existence of tombs here was a matter of notoriety 
many years ago, but it is only recently that the wide 
extent of the cemetery has been made apparent, and 
the passages under ground traced to some extent. 
Continually a fresh opening appears in the hill, as the 
rains in course of time wash the weathered limestone 
away, and the first notice of this generally is the occu- 
pation of the vault within by a jackal. 

The view of Carthage from the top of this hill is 
very striking, and perhaps it is from it that the visitor 
will do best to take his first survey, in order to gain 



408 GENERAL VIEW OF CARTHAGE. 

a general idea of the whole locality. Looking south- 
east by east, he will have the village of Sidi Bou-Saed 
on the top of a hill immediately opposite to him, with 
a valley intervening in which is the village El Mersa, 
and the Bey's country palace. A little to the left is 
the sea, washing the foot of Ras Sidi-Bou-Saed, called 
on the maps Cape Carthage. His eye, pursuing the 
line of high ground from the village of Sidi Bou-Saed, 
will, as it travels southwards, first be attracted by the 
white walls of a new palace on the crest of the plateau, 
where it is rather lower than elsewhere. At no great 
distance from this point it is that the excavations 
were made, in which the last mosaics were discovered. 
Proceeding still further, the attention is arrested by 
the hill of St. Louis with its enclosure, and the 
chapel rising from within. Burj-Jedeed is invisible: 
it lies between the elevated plateau and the sea. 
From the chapel of St. Louis, the plateau descends 
gently into the plain. Just beyond its foot (as 
appears to the eye) is the village Dowar es Shat, 
represented by a single small house, in which a 
gentleman resides, who is (I believe) an American — 
a co-operator with Mr. Davis in his researches. Almost 
exactly in this line comes the most picturesque mass 
among the mountains of the Dahkil Bashir, which form 
throughout a background to the plateau just described, 
with the gulf of Tunis intervening between the two. 
The notched summit of one of the peaks, which from 



REMAINS OE AMPHITHEATRE. 409 

many parts of tlie plain of Tunis (and indeed from 
the roadstead also) stands out a most conspicuous 
object, bears south by east of our imaginary spectator. 
Just beyond Dowar es Shat stretches out the long 
strip of land which separates the sea from the lake of 
Tunis. The buildings of the Goletta appear in the 
middle of the bar. Turning still to the right, Tunis 
itself is seen to the south-west, at ten or twelve miles' 
distance. In the intermediate space is the flat plain, 
planted here and there with olive groves, and in some 
places sown with corn, but for the most part covered 
with grass rather fine than luxuriant. Along it lie 
the huge masses of the great aqueduct, which Sir 
Grenville Temple has very happily likened to the 
" bleached vertebrae of some gigantic serpent." 

The remains of an amphitheatre are to be seen at 
no great distance from the cisterns of Malakah, and 
bearing about south south-east from them. They are 
not very easy to find, for the land all about is sown 
with cereals, and it is necessary to wade through the 
crop in order to reach the ruins. The amphitheatre 
was of small size — a circumstance which confirms the 
notion of the little importance of Roman Carthage 
during the time that gladiatorial exhibitions were 
popular. The shape is more than usually elliptical, 
and the major axis would lie between the points 
north by east and south by west. The edifice is so 
entirely ruined that the limit of the arena becomes 



410 



PROCOPIUS'S ACCOUNT 



very difficult to define. I estimated the length and 
width as about eighty and fifty yards respectively; 
but these numbers do not pretend to accuracy. There 
is a considerable depression in the middle of the 
arena, which very probably was filled with water for 
the naumachiae, or boat-fights ; but it is now com- 
pletely piled up with rubbish. If used for this pur- 
pose, the water would be supplied from the cisterns 
at Malakah. Indeed the site of the amphitheatre is, 
in my opinion, within the limit of the Punic Magaria, 
which, as has been related, was artificially irrigated ; 
and consequently the architect of the amphitheatre 
very likely found a water apparatus ready to his 
hand. 

The narrative which Procopius, likewise an eye- 
witness, gives of the expedition under Belisarius, 
indicates that a great change had taken place in the 
condition of Carthage. The whole nomenclature of 
the neighbourhood seems to have altered. Still, as 
the historian gives the distances with an air of careful 
precision, his account is valuable for the topographer. 
Belisarius, after landing his army at Capudia (Caput 
Vada) a spit forming the northern boundary of the 
Lesser Syrtis, marched as near as he could to the 
coast, in order to keep up a communication with his 
fleet. Thus he proceeded, through Leptis and Adru- 
metum, until he arrived at a place called Grasse, 
situated 350 stades from Carthage, where there was 



OF THE VANDAL WAS,. 



411 



a country palace and pleasure grounds of Gelimer the 
king of the Vandals, a marvel for the abundant irriga- 
tion, the productiveness of the fruit trees, and extent 
and beauty of the timber. Prom Grasse he proceeded 
towards Carthage, and on the fourth day approached 
a place which Procopius calls Decimus,* seventy 
stades from the city. Thirty-five stades short of this 
point, he halted and encamped. 

It was at or near Decimus that Gelimer had formed 
the idea of crushing the invading army by a combi- 
nation of movements, and the details of these furnish 
materials for determining its situation with tolerable 
accuracy. At the time Belisarius landed, he himself 
was with a part of his forces in the neighbourhood of 
Tripoli, and he followed the invaders by a route 
which lay more inland and debouched in this place 
on the one which Belisarius had taken. His brother 
Ammatas was to stop the enemy's advance upon 
Carthage by means of the force left under his com- 
mand in the town. Gehmer also sent on two thousand 
Vandals, under Gibamund, to the left of the course 
which he himself pursued, to take up a position in 
" the plain of salt," forty stades from Decimus, and on 
the left hand of the road which Belisarius would have 

* This is, I conceive, a corruption of the Latin, Ad decimum (i. e. 
milliare). The miles would be measured from some point within the 
city, but Procopius is speaking of the distance from the walls. Ten 
Koman miles would be, making this allowance, almost the same 
thing as the distance the author gives. {Bell. Vandal, i. § 17.) 



412 THE LAKE IN HIS TBIE 

to follow in advancing upon Carthage. The design 
of the Vandal king failed, owing to the carelessness of 
Ammatas and the prudence of Belisarius. The latter 
had sent a strong force of cavalry in advance of his 
columns, and likewise moved his auxiliary Huns at 
a considerable distance from his own left. The result 
was that the Huns came upon the Vandal detachment 
and cut them to pieces, while the advanced guard of 
Roman cavalry surprised the troops of Ammatas, as 
they arrived in small bodies from the town, and 
entirely defeated them. But the nature of the ground 
where these operations took place was such that none 
of the parties engaged perceived what the others were 
doing. The Roman cavalry were unaware of the 
success of the Huns, and GeHmer, when he reached 
Decimus, was still ignorant of the misfortunes which 
had happened, or of the position taken up by Beli- 
sarius. These conditions can only be satisfied by 
supposing that the Decimus of Procopius (which he 
calls a suburb * of Carthage) included the hills to the 
south and south-east of the modern Tunis, and that 
the "plain of salt" is represented by the marshy 
ground to the west of that town. 

Gibbon, in giving his account of the invasion under 
Belisarius, assumes that the Roman fleet found shelter 
in the lake of Tunis. For this, however, he has not 
the authority of Procopius, nor, so far as I am aware, 

* irpodo'Teiov. 



NOT USED AS A HARBOUR. 413 

of any other author. It is true that the fleet entered 
a lake, which then bore the Koman name " Stagnum/' 
but if this were the same which existed in the time 
when Punic Carthage was captured by Scipio, it could 
not have been the modern lake of Tunis.* If, on the 
other hand, it was this, the great alteration of level 
which has entirely changed the face of the locality 
must have then already taken place, — possibly in 
the volcanic convulsions of which a record has been 
noticed in the description of Guelma. But whatever 
the "lake" of Procopius was, it was not used by the 
Vandals, or thought worth taking the pains to guard. 
The harbour of Vandal Carthage, which bore the name 
Mandracium, was closed with a chain. It seems to 
me likely to have been the same as that which in 
former days was called Cothon. It was too small to 
hold the Roman fleet, which would hardly have been 
the case with the harbour of Punic Carthage. One 
may perhaps suppose that this was destroyed by 
Scipio, and that the Cothon sufficed for the wants of 
the Roman town of the times of the Empire. Another 
suburb, or suburban viUage, bore the name of Adas. 
It seems to have lain on the route from Carthage to 
the southern part of Numidia : for it was in it that 

* See above, page 388. Gibbon no doubt simply followed Shaw, 
who tacitly assumes that the lake spoken of by Procopius {Bell. 
Vand, i. 15) must be the one he saw. 



414 DESTRUCTION OE THE AQUEDUCT. 

Gelimer, on his way to Carthage from the Aures as 
a prisoner, found Behsarius.* 

It seems at first rather singular that in the descrip- 
tion given of the siege of Carthage by Scipio, no 
mention should occur of the enormous aqueduct, the 
ruins of which constitute at the present time so 
striking an object. It seems to have been cut for the 
first time by the Vandals, in their efforts to recover 
Carthage from Belisarius. This destruction took place 
close under the walls of the town.f But the assailants 
do not appear to have at all furthered their object by 
the step. The stores of water in the cisterns would 
last for a very long time ; and, besides this, water may 
be obtained by digging in any part of the locality 
near the sea, — although no doubt of an inferior 
quality to that which was supplied by the fountains of 
Zaghwan. This might have been the reason why, 
when Scipio tried to starve the city, he did not (as it 
would seem) interrupt the water supply. It would 
have been ineffectual for his purpose ; while injury to 
the aqueduct would have diminished the produce of 
the country, and weakened his own commissariat. 

* Adas is possibly a Byzantine substitute for Pertusa, the name 
given by the Antonine Itinerary to the first station from Carthage 
on the route which led through Sicca Veneria to Tagaste, the birth- 
place of St. Augustine. It is placed at fourteen Roman miles from 
Carthage. Tagaste may perhaps be the modern Souk-Aras. The 
Itinerary puts it at fifty-three miles from Hippo Regius (Bona) and 
fifty-seven from Sicca Veneria (El Kef). 

f Procopius, Bell. Vand. ii. 1. 



COST 01^ ALGERIA. 



415 



CHAPTER XIV. 



A VOLUME upon the subject of Algeria can hardly 
be brought to a termination satisfactorily to an English 
reader, without some reflections upon its present and 
probable future value to its conquerors. This is a 
topic, however, which it is difficult to handle within 
the space which can fairly be allotted to it here. 
I shall not attempt, therefore, to strike a balance 
between the advantages and disadvantages of such 
a possession, but merely point out some of the most 
important considerations which suggested themselves 
to me during the period of my stay. 

As a mere question of pecuniary profit or loss, 
there is no doubt that the cost of Algeria to France 
is very great. The balance of the expenses of main- 
taining the colony over the receipts amounted, at the 
end of 1847, to 775,164,202 francs. A further loss of 
not less than 498,000,000 francs was incurred during 
the next seven years. It thus appears that the outlay 
during the first twenty-three years of the occupation 
came little if at all short of £51,000,000 sterling. 



416 PERMANENT WOEKS. 

Since the commencement of 1854 it is not likely that 
the excess of expenditure has diminished : for though 
the resources of the colony have increased, the public 
works have been pushed on with much greater vigour 
than ever before ; and it would probably be under the 
mark to estimate the cost of Algeria to France up to 
the present moment at £60,000,000 sterling. In 
return for this enormous outlay may be put the forti- 
fications and harbour of Algiers ; the roads which 
diverge from that town, Oran, Bona, and Philippeville ; 
the lines of electric telegraph which now connect all 
the military stations with one another and with Paris ; 
works of drainage and irrigation (of which the prin- 
cipal are in the plain of the Metidja and the neigh- 
bourhood of Bona) ; and various works of utility, such 
as aqueducts, fountains, and lavatories for the use of 
the several villages which have been formed as " centres 
of population." To these may be added a few light- 
houses, and the works by which an attempt has been 
made to establish some kind of substitute for a port 
at Oran, Arzew, Mostaganem, Dellys, and Bona. A 
great deal of money has been spent in works of defence, 
as at Maskara, Oran, Philippeville, and Bona, or in 
barracks for military, as at Medeah, Constantine, and 
Batna, to say nothing of the loopholed wall which 
surrounds every new settlement, although its destiny 
is to fall to the ground in the course of a few years. 
And, finally, a very large sum has been laid out in 



PRODUCTS OF ALGERIA. 417 

churches, orphan refuges, and other establishments 
connected with the moral improvement of the colony, 
in hospitals, in schools both for Europeans and natives, 
and even in mosques and colleges for the use of the 
Arabs. 

But amid all this outlay, it is impossible not to 
be struck with the very small portion which can be 
regarded in the light of a profitable investment. 
There is scarcely a single road upon which produce 
can be cheaply conveyed to the coast from forty miles 
distant, or a single port at which it can be conve- 
niently shipped. The difficulties which have stood in 
the way of establishing ordinary routes, arising as they 
do out of the want of proper materials, must be *an 
equal obstacle to the formation of embankments for 
railroads ; and the configuration of the coast is most 
unfavourable to the construction of ports exactly at 
those points where they are most required. If one con- 
siders, too, the nature of the most important products 
of North Africa, the prospect of any advantageous 
commerce is not great. The tobacco of Algeria can- 
not compete in the open market with that of the West 
Indies. The cultivation of cereals has indeed in- 
creased in the last four years, having received an 
extraordinary stimulus from the demand for the use of 
the army in the Crimea during the late w^ar ; but the 
conclusion of this having set free the ports of the 
Black Sea, discourages any expectation that the im- 

EE 



418 EUROPEAN IMMIGRATION. 

provement in this respect will be carried much further. 
The cultivation of olives, and of mulberry trees for 
silk, seems the most promising field for industry ; but 
these branches of agriculture require European labour. 
The Arab cannot be induced to graft his olive trees, or 
to sort the fruit for the press, regarding any such pro- 
ceeding as a contempt of the gifts of God; and, as 
has been several times remarked, the European, or at 
least the French colonist, clings obstinately to the 
towns on the coast, and shrinks from the hardships 
attendant on a settlement in the interior. Indeed, 
up to the present time, it may be doubted whether 
the number of able-bodied Europeans engaged in 
the cultivation of the soil throughout the whole of 
Algeria much (if at all) exceeds 10,000 and of them 
the far greater part consists of Spaniards and Maltese. 
To maintain half-a-dozen soldiers for the purpose of 
protecting each one of these cannot but be an un- 
profitable transaction in a pecuniary point of view. 

Even if the immigration of Europeans for the pur- 
pose of permanent settlement should greatly increase, 
and the problem of providing them with land without 
exciting the discontent of the native population should 
be satisfactorily solved, it appears likely that the 
issue of this will be to create a large population of 
tenants from the south of Europe cultivating the 

* See the note at the end of the chapter, for the grounds of this 
opinion. 



SPANIARDS AND MALTESE. 419 

land of non-resident French proprietors, and gradu- 
ally getting possession of it themselves. This will 
not be a very safe tenure for France, in the event of 
a general European war. The Spaniards and Maltese 
get on very much better than the French do with the 
native population, who are much more accustomed 
to them, and seem to have forgotten their former 
feuds with them under the overwhelming influence 
of hostility to the French invaders. In fact, by the 
conquest of Algeria, France has in some sort served as 
a conductor to draw off the hatred of the African 
Mahometans from the other Christian races. More 
than once have I found in Algeria the conventional 
civility of the Arab to an European change into an 
unmistakeable expression of goodwill, when it ap- 
peared that I was an Englishman ; and in Tunis a 
notification of the fact at once drew forth a " Buono 
Inglese : non buono Francese," from the mouth of a 
native. It was to Tunis that the largest proportion of 
the Moorish emigrants from Algiers retired in the 
times which immediately succeeded the conquest, 
when the conduct of the victors was for a while 
characterised by a recklessness for the feelings of the 
conquered scarcely to be paralleled in the wars of 
civilised nations. This arose mainly from the extreme 
ignorance of the Government that planned the ex- 
pedition, which was so astounded by the magnitude 
of a success that took it entirely by surprise, as 

E E 2 



420 ARAB EMIGRANTS TROM SPAIN. 

to be incapable either of framing a policy for 
itself, or deputing its powers to the General on the 
spot. 

The Government which fell before the ^French inva- 
sion was indeed one of a very extraordinary character. 
When the empire of the Caliphs in Africa broke up, 
two new important centres of power arose, the one at 
Fez, the other in Egypt; but between these two a 
number of independent states grew up, of which 
Algiers was one. The tide of victory had now tm^ned 
against the Arabian conquerors of Spain, and num- 
bers of Moors emigrated from that country to all 
parts of the coast of Africa. They were received 
hospitably everywhere ; and the habits of industry 
which they brought with them from Europe contri- 
buted greatly to the prosperity of their adopted 
country. The pure Arabian population of Africa 
still retained, to a great extent, the tastes and feelings 
of their nomad ancestors ; but the emigrants had 
been accustomed in Spain to the settled lives of 
agriculturists and traders, and carried altered habits 
with them back to Africa. It is these emigrants, 
modified in character, and doubtless also in blood, 
by their long residence in Europe, whose descendants 
constitute the staple of the population in the towns of 
the littoral of North Africa. 

This emigration of Moors commenced long before 
the final expulsion of the race from Andalusia; but 



THE OEIGINATOES OP PIRACY. 421 

wlien that event took place, the numbers were of 
course considerably increased. The exiles brought 
with them, not only the desperate feelings of ruined 
men, but the bitter animosity which, for generations 
afterwards, never fails to chng to the descendants of 
all who have been made victims of religious bigotry. 
They spread themselves along the coast, and took 
revenge upon the nation which had wronged them, 
by acts of piracy upon all Christian traders. The 
crews of the ships they captured were converted into 
instruments for carrying on the horrible trade of the 
corsair. Chained to the benches of the Moorish 
galleys, they were compelled, by lashes, to toil at the 
oars until they often fell dead from exhaustion. Less 
able-bodied captives were sold in the market, and 
made available for agricultural or handicraft labour. 
It has been mentioned above, that a mosque which 
stands in the principal square of Algiers is said to 
have been built by a Christian architect. 

Bat the hostility of Spain did not cease with the 
expulsion of the infidels from Europe. From being 
victims of hatred, they became objects of dread. They 
were followed to the African shore, where Oran, Bou- 
gie, and other points were occupied by their enemies. 
Among these latter was an island upon which the 
present lighthouse of Algiers is built. On this, which 
is within musket-shot of the shore, a fort was built, 
and a garrison left therein to harass the nest of 



422 THE TURKISH DYNASTY. 

pirates, whose galleys had, up to that time, found 
shelter between the island and the main. So galling 
did this measure prove, that the Emir of Algiers at 
last resolved to call in the assistance of a renegade 
pirate, Haroudji Barbarossa, to rid him of his trou- 
blesome neighbom^s. The post was ultimately cap- 
tured, but the unhappy chief, who had invited an 
ally, first had to learn that such a one might be 
worse than an enemy. He was assassinated while 
bathing. Haroudji succeeded him, and left the 
supreme power, on his death, to his brother, Kheir- 
eddin, who prudently secured his position by acknow- 
ledging the supremacy of the Porte, by which 
he was formally nominated Pacha of Algiers. This 
step made Algiers an integral part of the Turkish 
empire, and, in the state of irritation against the 
Christian Powers which then existed throughout the 
whole of Islam, was no doubt a popular one, and 
greatly contributed to secure the adhesion of the 
neighbouring provinces to the new Government. The 
pacha showed no want of zeal in preparations for war 
against the hated enemy. After obtaining possession 
of the Spanish fort above mentioned, he carried into 
execution a plan which, considering the resources of 
those days, may be called a gigantic one, — that of 
uniting the island on which the fort stood to the 
main by a solid pier of stone, and thus providing 
shelter for a much more numerous navy. This work. 



A MILITAHY OLIGARCHY. 423 

which exists at the present time, and still bears the 
name of its projector, was executed by the hands of 
30,000 Christian slaves, who were employed upon it 
for the space of three years. 

The power of Algiers had now become extremely 
formidable, when the Emperor Charles V'. of Spain, 
emboldened by the success which had crowned his 
eflPorts at Tunis, determined to attack it in person. 
Two Spanish armies had already perished in the 
attempt ; and the third was no more successful than 
the others. 

At this period, the middle of the sixteenth century, 
the Algerine power had assumed the same character, 
and extended over very much the same area, as in the 
time of the French invasion, three centuries later. 
Although nominally subject to the Porte, the Regency 
(as it came to be called) had grown into a military 
despotism, supported by a small army of Turks, 
whose numbers were recruited from Constantinople 
and other parts of the empire, especially Smyrna. 
It was a rale of the service, that no Moors should be 
introduced into it. Each company (or odd) was com- 
manded by an officer called bulcahashi (colonel). On 
his entrance, the young recruit was subjected to a very 
strict discipline, closely confined to barracks, from 
which he was only allowed to go out on one day of 
the week, and then under the superintendance of an 
officer. He received two pounds of bread a-day, and 



424 THE MOOES AND KOULOUGLIS 

about threepence in money. But after having passed 
through a sort of noviciate on these hard terms, his 
fortunes assumed the brightest hue. He wsls aUowed 
to marry, to follow a trade, or hold a civil appoint- 
ment, and to live with his family free from almost all 
the restraints of discipline, subject only to the con- 
ditions of being ready to take service when called 
upon until reaching the age of fifty. His pay, and 
his chances of promotion, w^ent on all the same. He 
often married a Moorish heiress, or became rich by 
commercial speculation, the commonest form of which 
was the taking part in fitting out corsairs, — a most 
profitable employment of capital, under which the 
Moorish merchants grew as rich as the Bristol traders 
of last century by the parallel occupation of fitting out 
vessels for the African slave-trade. There can be no 
doubt that the easy acquisition of wealth by this 
means — evidence of which appears in the costliness 
of the interiors of the Moorish houses in Algiers, and 
in the numberless villas with which the country round 
about is studded — operated strongly in reconciling 
the natives (an avaricious race) to the domination of 
one of the narrowest oligarchies of which history pre- 
sents an example. The Turkish force in the whole of 
Algeria is said never at any time to have amounted to 
16,000 men, and very generally to have been httle 
more than half that number. 

The children of the Turkish soldiers and the 



A SUBJECT CLASS. 425 

Moorisli or Christian women with whom they coha- 
bited, were called Kouloughs. Tor some time they 
were allowed to enter the military service, but not 
permitted, as was the case with the pure blood, to rise 
to the higher ranks. Dissatisfaction at this restriction 
produced, in the middle of the seventeenth century, 
a conspiracy having for its object the expulsion of 
the oligarchy from the country. This was discovered 
before it was ripe for execution : the Koulouglis were 
massacred, and, from that time forward, the separa- 
tion of the two classes became more marked, and the 
government of the military aristocracy more rigorous. 
Still some exceptional cases occurred of Koulouglis 
acquiring high positions. The last Bey of Constan- 
tine was one. 

The supreme power in this singular constitution 
was reposed in a council of sixty, consisting of bul- 
cabashies and other great functionaries. They elected 
the Regent, or Bey, without reference to anything 
else than their own opinion of his fitness. The new 
functionary informed the Porte of the fact, and re- 
ceived, in return, a firman appointing him Pacha, 
and a kaftan of honour. The council, however, pos- 
sessed the right of deposition as well as of election, — 
a right which was often exercised, and, as might be 
expected in such cases, deposition was generally soon 
followed by death. In fact, ever since the massacre 
of the Koulouglis, the appointment of the Deys, like 



426 ADMINISTRATION BY THE DEIS 

that of the Roman emperors by the praetorian guards, 
assumed the character rather of a tumultuous pro- 
ceeding than a legal election. Assassination was the 
inevitable fate of each as soon as he became unpo- 
pular, or, from accidental circumstances, found himself 
without funds to satisfy the demands of the Janis- 
saries. On the occasion of the death of one Dey (in 
1732), six successors were chosen, and each after- 
wards murdered in the course of the forenoon. The 
seventh contrived to keep his seat for nine years, and 
to die in his bed at the end of that time. This, how- 
ever, was an unusually long tenure of power. Between 
1808 and 1815 three Deys were strangled, and 
two years later a fourth, — the one under whom 
Algiers had to endure the bombardment by Lord 
Exmouth. 

Criminal justice was administered within Algiers 
and the surrounding territory by the Dey, or his 
deputies, but the judges of civil suits were two kadis, 
the one called El Hanephi, for suits in which Turks 
were concerned, the other El Maleki, for those between 
Moors. The words Hanephi and Maleki indicate two 
different sects or schools of jurisprudence, to the one 
of which the Turks belong, and the Moors to the 
other. From these there was an appeal to a higher 
court, consisting of two Muftis, the one a Hanephi, 
the other a Maleki, joined with the two kadis above- 
mentioned ; and it is a remarkable circumstance that, 



AND THEIE SATRAPS. 427 

in spite of the jealousy which sectarian differences 
generally inspire, this arrangement seems to have 
worked well. 

Beyond the limits of the home jurisdiction, the 
duties of government were performed by the Beys of 
the three dependent provinces, Tittery (of which the 
capital was Medeah), Constantine, and Oran. These 
satraps, which were appointed by the Dey of Algiers, 
were responsible to him for the proper maintenance 
of their provinces. They had, like the Dey, a body- 
guard consisting of pure Turks, which were employed 
from time to time in overcoming any serious resistance 
to their authority, and every two or three years they 
were obliged to present themselves in person at the 
seat of central power, render an account of their 
administration, do homage to their superior, and 
make such presents to important officials, as are in- 
separable from the machinery of despotic governments. 
But the population of the provinces over which they 
were placed was of a very different kind from the Moors 
of the coast. The greater portion of it consisted of 
tribes leading a purely or principally nomad life, in 
exactly the same state as that in which they had 
issued from Arabia many centuries before. Under the 
Caliphate the whole of these owed obedience to the 
viceroy of the caliph, or Ouali, who, under the title 
of the Chief of Africa, resided at Kairwan, near Susa, 
in the beyUk of Tunis. Each province was, for the 



428 GOYEENMENT OP THE TKIBES 

purposes of ad minis tration, divided into a certain 
number of Outlians (circles), and in each of these was 
placed a Kaid (or prefect), nominated by the Ouali. 
But on the decline of the Caliphate, the tribes of the 
Sahara relapsed at once into a condition of absolute 
independence, while those of the Tel, or hill country, 
fell into a subjection, more or less complete, to the 
great chiefs of Tlemgen, Bougie, and Tunis. When 
the Turkish domination commenced, the Beys of the 
several provinces took the place of the Ouali, and 
nominated kaids to the several outhans ; but some of 
the more powerful tribes obtained an exemption from 
this arrangement, and their Sheiks, confirmed in 
authority by the Bey, occupied the place of the kaid in 
the several outhans to which they belonged. The haid 
must not in any way be confounded with the kadi. The 
latter is the local judge who, in conjunction with the 
Mufti, administers justice between man and man. 
The former, in his origin, is the imperial tax-collector, 
armed with the power requisite for enabling him 
to execute his function. In the case of the pastoral 
or partially agricultural tribes, he appears in person 
or by deputy in the place where the weekly market 
is held, and receives certain dues on all merchan- 
dise, amounting to about two-and-a-half per cent, on 
its value. 

These arrangements, which had existed long before 
the beginning of the Turkish rule, were maintained 



DEPENDENT ON ALGIERS. 



429 



by the new government.* The great bulk of the 
Arabs, finding no change introduced in the mode 
of Kfe to which they had so long been accustomed,— 
the lucrative offices being still held by their co- 
religionists, and, where a new appointment was made, 
that appointment being judiciously conferred upon 
persons of great local influence — acquiesced readily in 
the supremacy of Algiers, the more so as the Turks 
were undeniably, at the time, the champions of their 
common faith in the battle-field of Europe. The 
conduct of the Beys towards the tribes was charac- 
terized by great forbearance and prudence. The only 
demand made upon them, beyond the payment of the 
market dues to which they had been used (the value 
of which w^as, in fact, returned to them in the shape of 
the additional security afforded to travelling traders), 
was for a subsidiary force of cavalry (the Gomi) from 
time to time, to coerce some refractory tribe ; and as 
this service always implied the plunder of the offenders, 
the demand was readily complied with. Occasionally, 
although very rarely, some severe punishment was 
necessary by way of example ; and the Turkish body- 
guard of the Beys was called into action, and un- 

* It is most likely the Arabian conquerors found tliem existing 
in the country. In the arrangements which Scipio made between 
the sons of Massinissa, one may recognise the same distinction of 
functions which exists at the present day. The eldest son was made 
(to speak in modern language) Bey of Cirta, the second, Agha (War 
Minister), and the third Kaid, his jurisdiction extending over all 
the dependencies. (Appian, viii. 106.) 



430 INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION 

sparing vengeance inflicted upon all in any way 
connected with the offenders. But insulated and 
independent of one another, as the tribes have always 
been except in those instances in which religion 
evoked a strong common feeling, these exceptional 
cases of severity never engendered permanent hostility 
towards the central power. 

The very rapidity of the French successes prevented 
them from being acquainted with the real nature 
of the government which had fallen before them. 
Vv^ithin a month from the landing of the first soldier, 
they found themselves installed in the stronghold of 
the Dey. The professed object of the invasion had 
only been to obtain satisfaction for an insult offered 
to the French consul, to put an end to the practice of 
piracy on the sea, and to regain certain privileges of 
fishing for coral on the coast of Barbary, — the real one 
(it has been said) was simply to strengthen Pohgnac's 
ministry by the prestige of military success. How- 
ever this may be, it is certain that, when Algiers fell, 
not only had Bourmont no instructions what to do, 
but the Home Government had formed no plan. The 
General sent home a proposal for demolishing the 
fortifications and the port ; and the general expecta- 
tion was that the conquerors would place Algiers and 
its dependencies at the disposal of the Porte, and 
content themselves with retaining one or two points 
on the coast. In the meantime it was of course 



OE THE TOWN. 431 

necessary to establish some sort of provisional govern- 
ment for tlie city, and the expedient resorted to was, 
of all others, the most likely to alienate the minds of 
the conquered population. 

The internal administration of Algiers had been, 
like that of the country, conducted by a hierarchy of 
responsible officials, each invested with nearly absolute 
power within the limits of his own sphere. Each 
different class of the urban community had its chief, 
responsible to a high Turkish official, the Kkasnadji, 
an office which may be roughly described as uniting 
the functions of Home Secretary and Chancellor 
of the Exchequer. Every trade had its amin (or 
master), who administered its affairs and its police. 
These guilds consisted of even diverse races. 
One of them, the porters, is made up of the tribes 
of Biskra and its neighbouring oases. Another tribe, 
the Beni Mozabites, has already been described. The 
guild of these, domiciled at Algiers, had the mono- 
poly of the native baths. The free negroes formed 
another separate community under a Kaid of their 
own ; and even the despised Israelites had their chief, 
who was called, perhaps in mockery, " the king of the 
Jews." By this machinery the action of the central 
power upon the several elements of a heterogeneous 
population was rendered simple and effective ; and the 
central power was now the Erench General. All that 
was required from him was to preserve the machine from 



432 INJUDICIOUS POLICY 

injury, and to secure liis own position at the centre ; 
and the inheritance of the Deys would have passed 
over unimpaired to the conquerors. Unhappily, no 
one knew anything about the facts of the case. M. 
Bourmont, heartbroken at the death of his son, shut 
himself up and left the work of organisation to his 
subordinates ; and they, under the influence of one 
Ahmed Bouderbah, a Moor who had resided for some 
time in Marseilles, superseded all existing agencies 
by a mixed commission of Moors and Jews. Of this 
the adviser — a man compelled to leave France 
in consequence of a fraudulent bankruptcy — was 
made president. The immediate result was that 
robberies attended with violence, which had been 
previously unknown, began to prevail to a frightful 
extent. The property of the State vanished ; the public 
archives were destroyed. Under the very eyes of 
the officer in charge, the French soldiers used to 
light their pipes with the contents of the State-Paper 
Office in the Kasbah. The whole country between 
Sidi Ferudje and Algiers was pillaged, the gardens 
laid waste, and the villas pulled down wantonly, 
or to save the trouble of collecting firewood. Duties 
were levied and not accounted for ; the skippers 
of the transports helped themselves to the stores 
in the arsenal ; the aqueducts by which Algiers was 
supplied with water were damaged, and the fountains 
failed in consequence. In short, everything went 



AETER THE CONQUEST. 433 

on in the way which might be expected where an 
army finds itself in an enemy's country which it 
beHeves itself to be on the point of leaving for 
ever. 

The Government of Charles X. determined to retain 
Bougie, and that place was accordingly occupied at 
the expense of some blood: but the revolution of 
July followed, and Bourmont, anxious for his own 
position, drew all his outlying forces back into 
Algiers. The new dynasty superseded him. His 
successor, General Clausel, arrived at Algiers on the 
2d of September, and found the victorious army 
crowded in a disorganised town, hemmed in by a 
hostile population, and suffering much from disease 
and privation. Had the design of abandoning Algiers 
to the Sultan been persevered in, the whole result of 
an unexampled success would have been to excite the 
contempt as well as the hatred of the entire population 
of North Africa against France. This misfortune was 
indeed prevented by a more courageous policy on 
the part of the Orleans dynasty ; but, in estimating 
the aggregate success of France up to the present 
time, it is only fair to remember that all the expense 
of blood and treasure which was incurred during 
the eighteen years succeeding the conquest, served 
merely to place her (and that only materially, not 
morally) in the position which she might have 
occupied in the year 1830, had her statesmen at 



434 FRENCH ADMIN ISTRATIOK 

that time possessed lialf the knowledge and the talent 
for organization which belonged to the Outrams, 
Lawrences, Colvins, and the thousand other names 
of this and the last century to whom England owes 
it that her career in India has not been a parallel on 
a large scale to that of her great rival in Africa. 
Fortune gave the empire of the successors of Khair- 
eddin over to the Polignac ministry, as one might 
put a necklace of pearls into the hands of a boor. 
All that was wanted was to hold fast the clasp ; but, 
instead of that, the string was wantonly cut, and 
the beads, rolling in every direction, have perhaps 
not been recovered altogether even yet. 

It would be however a shallow judgment which 
should estimate the value of Algeria by a simple 
reference to the balance-sheet. As a training-school 
for the Trench army it is difficult to over-estimate 
its value ; and that not merely in producing hardy 
and helpful soldiers, but in exercising those who 
command them in the duties of administration. 
The whole of the country over which the control of 
the French extends is subjected to a division, which 
has been noticed above,* into military and civil 
territory. With the exception of the Phaz of Algiers, 
and the greater portion of the Metidja, the latter 
only extends for a very short distance round each 
of the towns or principal villages. In the military 

* Page 255. 



AT THE PEESENT TIME. 435 

territory, the commanding officer has to exercise the 
functions of a justice of the peace as well as the 
duties more peculiar to his profession ; and as this 
system prevails over by far the larger portion of 
Algeria, and involves the jurisdiction over nearly two 
milHons of Kabyles and Arabs of all degrees of 
civilisation, it is eminently adapted for the develop- 
ment of the administrative talents which, in positions 
of high command, are as necessary as military skill. 
The agency which plays the principal part in the 
government of the tribes is the Bureau Arabe, the 
originating of which, it has been above remarked, was 
due to the sagacity of General Lamoriciere. There 
is a principal office of this in every province at 
the seat of Government, with branches in the chief 
place of every circle. All questions between the 
native population which occur in mihtary territory 
are brought primarily before the members of these. 
If the case be a simple one, it is decided on the spot ; 
if otherwise, it is referred, according to its nature, 
to the kadis of the native tribes, or to a military 
tribunal. Of course, in such an arrangement, absolute 
power must, directly or indirectly, rest with the 
French officers ; and that this power is on the whole 
well employed, appears from the system working satis- 
factorily to the Arabs. Many of them are growing 
rich, and imbibing a love for the arts of peace, 
becoming more stationary, and sowing a greater 



436 THE NEW" CONSTITUTION 

breadth of grain every year. A few of the principal 
chiefs are attached to the department, and draw 
salaries from the French Government, to which there 
is every reason to beheve they are well affected. 
Lamoriciere was so much beloved by one native chief 
of great influence, a marabout of Koleah, that on his 
death he bequeathed him an orange-garden of great 
celebrity in the immediate neighbourhood of that 
town. When the general quitted Africa, he presented 
this to the officers of the battalion quartered there ; 
and it is one of the prettiest pleasure-grounds I saw 
in Algeria. As regards, indeed, the relations between 
the military and the natives, it appeared to me that 
there was always a consideration shown for the latter, 
which in time might obliterate the memory of past 
sufferings. The greatest difficulties in this respect 
arise from the low European civihans, who are too 
coarse to understand the feelings of the native and 
too lazy to learn his language. 

The new constitution for Algeria will, I greatly 
fear, not be found to work well. Its distinctive cha- 
racter is to insulate each of the three provinces, and 
to establish a Council for each, consisting partly of 
Europeans and partly of native notabilities. This 
Council has the privilege of communicating directly 
with the Minister tor Algeria at Paris, but in other 
respects is almost absolutely under the control of the 
Prefect of the province. It is to vote the wayS and 



OE ALGERIA. 437 

means for meeting the provincial expenditure, but 
the budget itself is prepared by the prefect and the 
military commandant ; and if the Council does not 
make provision for what are described as the " ordi- 
nary expenses " of the province, its acquiescence 
is dispensed with, and the defect supplied by the 
prefect, the military commandant, and the minister. 
Among these " ordinary expenses " is included the 
cost of getting in the revenue, that of the central 
police, and the salaries of native officials, items which, 
it is obvious, may be made to include the cost of 
pretty nearly all the machinery of Government. Even 
with such precautions against any independent action, 
— although the members of the Council are actually 
nominated by the Emperor, — a nervous anxiety is 
displayed lest the newly-constituted bodies should 
assert their independence. The time and the duration 
of their session is to be regulated by decree from 
Paris, and it is made penal for them to publish any 
address, or to communicate with the Council of either 
of the other provinces. But if their power is null in 
opposition to the wishes of the Government, it is 
enormous for the purpose of giving the colour of 
consent to them. They may vote sums of money in 
advance to meet possible requirements on the part of 
the prefect and military commandant ; and they may 
grant concessions of public works to either companies 
or individuals. It is obvious that, with such pro- 



438 RETURN TO A SYSTEM 

visions as these, the Council can only be regarded as 
a machine for raising such funds as the minister may 
require ; and that however they may mask, they cannot 
really check, the most extortionate exactions and the 
most absurd monopolies. The will of the Govern- 
ment is, just as before, the sole arbitrator both of the 
burden to be laid on the backs of the governed, and 
of the manner of its distribution. But if the new con- 
stitution is no nearer an approach to self-government, 
neither does it provide more efficient machinery for 
absolutism. On the contrary, it seems a return to the 
false system which prevailed before the discovery was 
made that the natives could be ruled by the agency 
of their existing institutions. The authority of the 
Sheik over his tribe, the most precious of instruments 
in the hands of those who know how to govern men, 
is avowedly sought to be destroyed. Some of the 
members of Council already named are Jews, a fact of 
itself enough to prejudice every native against the 
new scheme. If anything could add to the absurdity 
of this step, it would be the grave official announce- 
ment, that it was taken to establish the supremacy of 
the principle of religious toleration in the estimation 
of the natives. These will bow to the superior force 
of the Frenchman, although they hate his rehgion ; 
but to set up an Israelite in a position of authority 
over them will be regarded simply as a gratuitous 
insult. One might as well attempt to increase an 



ALREADY FOUND TO TAIL. 439 

English nobleman's sense of Christian brotherhood, 
by forcing him to dine in his own servants' -hall. 

There are doubtless many who, if a fresh outbreak 
of the native population of Algeria should be the 
issue of the new constitution, will not be sorry to see 
the power of France weakened, and her resources 
exhausted in the efforts to restore tranquilhty. Of 
that number I shall certainly not be one. Whatever 
crimes may have been committed, and whatever 
amount of suffering infficted, in the conquest of Xorth 
Africa, the present state of things is a gain to the 
native population, and a benefit to civilised Em'ope. 
Let our neighbours for another generation be satis- 
fied with the possession of a well-administered 
dependency. Let them allow it to develop itself 
into a colony in the natm-al course of events, as 
security for life and property, a settled policy, and 
the removal of absurd restrictions, gradually attract 
capital, and with capital emigration across the sea. 
Let them patiently await the disintegration of the 
old institutions, which will assuredly follow in time 
under the influence of increased wealth and long- 
continued peace. To cast seed upon the waters, 
even though many days must pass before the harvest 
be reaped, is a nobler policy for a ruler, than, out 
of a morbid impatience for results, to sow a crop 
of worthless thistles. 



440 



NOTE. 



Note from Page 418. 

The following is a comparative view of the civil European popula- 
tion of Algeria at the beginning of the years 1854 and 1857 : — 

1854. 1867. 



Erench 74,558 100,407 

Spaniards 36,613 41,441 

Italians 7,573 9,117 

Maltese 5,966 6,818 

Germans 4,663 5,565 

Swiss 1,656 1,747 

Others 2,163 2,040 



133,192 167,135 



In the former year the numbers were distributed among thd 
provinces, as follows : — 

Algiers 62,440 ^ 

Oran 41,464 )> = 133,192 

Constantino 29,288 J 



Divided according to sex, they consisted of — 

Men 48,467 1 

Women 37,457 )> = 133,192 

Children 47,268 J 

Of the principal towns of Algeria, the European civil population 
was — 



On the coast, in 


Algiers . . , 


. 30,403 




Tenez . . . 


. 1,385 


J) 


Cherchell . . 


. 1,119 


J? 


Dellys . . . 


471 


» 


Oran .... 


. 22,528 


n 


Mostaganem . 


. 5,720 


» 


Bona . . . 


. 7,740 




Philippeville . 


. 7,863 


}) 


Bougie . . . 


. 1,477 




. 78,706 


Near the coast 


Koleah . . , 


876 




Blidah . . . 


. 4,204 






5,080 


Inland . . . 


Medeah . . . 


. 1,176 




Milianah . . 


. 1,385 


}7 


OrleansviUe . 


998 


J) 


Maskara . . 


. 1,705 


}) 


Tlempen . . 


. 2,892 


if 


Constantino . 


. 2,364 






10,520 



94,306 

In all other parts of Algeria 38,786 



NOTE. 



441 



As in all the above-named places a considerable military force is 
maintained, it is only reasonable to suppose that the European 
population exists mainly for the purpose of ministering to their 
necessities, and contributes little or nothing to the products of the 
colony. In fact, the official return for the year 1854, puts the 
European population engaged in the cultivation of the soil at only 
30,080 persons. 

On the assumption that the same proportions held in the civil 
population on the 1st of January, 1857, the European inhabitants of 
the towns on the coast will have then been 98,311 out of the whole 
number of 167,135, and the population engaged in agriculture only 
37,659. Deducting three-fourths of these for women and children, 
there remain but 9,415 active labourers or overlookers. The army 
in Algeria on the 1st of January, 1857, consisted of 62,865 of 
all ranks, which gives nearly seven soldiers for every European 
producer. 



THE END. 



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